


Rediscovery

by satindolphin052



Category: Outer Wilds (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergent, Major Spoilers, Nomai POV, headcanon heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 32,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satindolphin052/pseuds/satindolphin052
Summary: Mint and Piper are the leaders of a Nomai clan that pride themselves in travelling the universe and gathering inspiration from the Sights, Sounds, Experiences, and Phenomena to create unique symphonies of light and music for the entire Nomai Colony to experience.While preparing for the upcoming Festival their Vessel hears a distant call for help.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21





	1. Prelude

Mint drummed his fingers on the table. He stared at the empty sheets laid in front of him, willing something to appear on them. His inner monologue helping none to contribute to his creative process.  
"Nothing still?" A voice brings him back to reality.  
"It's not that I've got nothing, it's that there seems to be far too much to choose from to pick anything," he replies, glancing up briefly to Zin “With the Festival approaching soon I think we should create something special for our performance but I'm struggling to even think of an opening movement."  
"Last time we performed it went well and we didn't do anything special."  
“And last time Moracia arranged our show while I simply played in the ensemble. Since then she's passed the task down to me, along with the Vessel.” He pauses as he twiddles the length of his long moustache between his finger tips “I've composed plenty of songs already but the Festival is like a test. Everyone was there to see me inherit the Vessel, and everyone will be there to see if I can uphold the same standard as her.”  
“I'm sure you'll do fine,” Murraya reassures from the opposite side of the table “No one will have any great expectations for you.”  
“That's true but it doesn't make me any less indecisive. Perhaps I should have started preparing a decade ago when I inherited the Vessel” He says with a slight laugh “Maybe we could recap the noteworthy events that have happened since then... or is that perhaps too self-centred?” He passes a glace over the other faces surrounding the table to gauge their reactions.  
“It's an idea. Which is a start.” Murraya says with a shrug  
“Perhaps we could work on the other parts of the performance and return back to the main arrangement?” Zin suggests leaning back in his chair  
“Yes, that seems like the best course of action for now.” Mint nods “Does anyone have any pieces they'd like us to perform?”  
Before anyone has the chance to answer a flicker of sound catches their attention,  
"Mint! Mint!" A voice echoes in from down the corridor.  
He jumps up out of his seat, recognising the owner and their panicked tone immediately. Everyone in the room turns to her as she appears in the doorway.  
"Our Vessel is picking up several faint distress signals from a star system just out of visual range." the alarmed Piper explains "Rosmar has been trying to communicate with them but we haven't received any messages back."  
"Then we must warp there immediately," the two of them rush to leave as the rest of the room pass a worried glance amongst themselves.

Mint and Piper push through the door into the bridge and take their place at the middle of the command centre.  
"I've been monitoring the nearby area, we should be safe to warp to the edge of the system and travel the remaining distance to their crash site." The Navigator says as he brings up a triplet of coordinates on the display screen.  
"Thank you Cori." Mint turns to his co-captain. "Piper, this is a big one, make sure the warp core adequately charges."  
She quickly takes a position next to the core, monitoring the machine's humming as the Vessel prepares itself for the jump.  
"Ready to warp." co-captain Piper announces.  
"Let's not delay any longer."  
The Vessel lurches to life as it summons the black hole on top of itself.

The warp spits them out in close orbit to a rocky planet. The side of the great ship is struck by a stray flaming projectile.  
"Cori!-"  
"This is not where the warp was supposed to take us," He explains quickly, "The Vessel seems to have significantly missed its exit coordinates."  
"We can recalibrate the warp core after we move out of range of this planet's volcanic moon."  
"Mint, this planet is the source of one of the distress signals." Rosmar says "We should send someone down as we move the Vessel away."  
"That sounds like a good plan. Piper, gather a team and head to the surface in one of our shuttles."  
She nods and swiftly heads into the belly of the ship.  
"There is another distress signal coming from the binary planet system closest to the sun," Rosmar says "Perhaps we should move the Vessel downwards out of the moons orbit to stay close to both signals."  
"Move us below the orbit of that forested planet," Mint adds pointing out the viewport to the next planet over "Once we're there I'll take a shuttle the rest of the way"  
The captain leaves his station to find his own team and shuttle.


	2. Lava Burned Rock

Piper leads her team into their shuttle. Bay, their skilled pilot, swiftly launches the ship towards the planet as the rest of the team suit up.

"Try to land us as close to the crash site as possible," Tarra says, pointing to the Escape pod out of the window "We won't want to be outside on the surface given the pelting it's receiving from the moon."

Bay nods and adjusts the flight trajectory accordingly, aiming to twist the boxy shuttle into the flattest space, closest to what appeared to be the main entrance of the escape pod. The rest of the team gear up in the heavy protective space suits hanging above their seats.

"Why did I have to come, these helmets are way too too bulky for me." the youngest of the four complains.

"You need the experience Nilla, You will get used to the suit" Piper helps her to balance the helmet on her head and locks it in place. “And you've got sharp vision, we're going to need you to keep a third eye out for anything else that could be dangerous.”

"Entering landing sequence now." Bay announces while waving a hand over the controls. The shuttle rotates on its long side and smoothly sails downwards towards the rocky terrain of the alien planet. The ship touches down, swaying slightly on the uneven ground. They step out to the surface and make their way up into the crashed escape pod.

"It seems that the impact only caused structural damage to the outside of the pod," Tarra narrates, recording her finding to memory as she wanders the ship. "Stasis beds appear to have sustained for the flight, oxygen and life support in condition good, ships log states- Piper! This can't be right!"

"What is it?"

"Look at this flight log, just from first glance its report is using an outdated format."

"So this is an old crash? How outdated do you think it is?"

"I'm not sure. Bay, come provide us some of your insight." Tarra calls him over.

Bay makes his way between the two of them and waves a hand over the wide face of the computer

“Strange, that should have summoned the console.” He says doing it again more slowly “Gesture based controls have been implemented for as long as I've been a pilot and at least several decades before that too.”

“This certainly is an old crash then, I hope the survivors aren't still in trouble.” Piper says as the pilot finds a button on the computer and presses it to release the terminal.

"What? This kind of interface had been entirely decommissioned," Bay furrows his thick eyebrows "I don't even have to use this to know it's extremely outdated, Whose clan does this pod even belong to!?”

The planet explodes outside. The ground shifts slightly from the impact.

"We'd better not stay in one place too long," Piper scans the pod checking her team "Do we have any ideas for where the survivors could have gone?"

"I saw some kind of pathway out the front of the pod as we were landing," Nilla says pointing to the side of the cliff out of the reinforced glass window "It looked like it went underground into some kind of chasm."

"An underground shelter, of course that would be much safer than staying on the surface. We'd better head down straight away." Piper leads out the pod, carefully hopping down and following it’s curve around to the start of the path of sloping platforms. Her eyes follow the spiral as it descends underground, instinctively reaching out for a hand hold as she realises the reality of the planet's dizzying hollow interior.

"Is that a black hole?"

" _Inside_ a planet? That couldn't be possible." Tarra steps next to the leader and follows their gaze downward. She blinks several times as if to wash away an afterimage on her vision.

"I've never seen this before..." Tarra says instantly curious and kneeling down

"We aren’t typically known for exploration. Maybe this sort of occurrence is quite common?" Piper says, thinking aloud.

"If this is one planet just think what else could be hiding inside any of the others here." Tarra continues “Or anywhere.”

"Maybe we should focus on this planet first." Bay teases from beside her.

"The platforms look like they can hold us, but they could be very aged and might be weakened," Nilla says joining them. "Should I go first? I am the lightest." she adds after a pause.

“No, we will all have to go down.” Bay says “It shouldn't matter our order.”

“Right, of course,” she replies relieved while reaching for Piper's hand.

“Don't worry dear, we'll be fine.” Piper squeezes back. “Quickly now, let's descend.” She addresses the group.

Bay sets a first step onto the first platform. The synthesised planks creak audibly as he carefully shifts more weight onto his foot to test the path. After the platform stops groaning Bay steps on with his second foot.

"It holds," he says swiftly stepping over to the next on the path. “Be careful however, do not slip on the loose dust and debris."

Tarra follows behind keeping a segment of the path between them and so do Piper and Nilla (although unlike the others they descend together.)

Fortunately the journey below the crust is uneventful, save for the occasional shaking and dust spray as meteors strike the surface.

* * *

"A settlement!" Bay exclaims as they follow the light trial around a corner. He waves for the others to catch up.  
A few small buildings tucked into the dangling rock formations dot the area and the remains of crumbled stone are scattered along the cliffs.

“It doesn't seem like anyone has lived here for a long time,” Piper says in a hushed voice as she traces a Nomai sized hole in the side of one of the buildings.

“Ah, but it was only a temporary settlement,” Bay says, tapping a spiral of text by the bridge to the settlement's entrance. “They must have moved somewhere safer!”

“Look at those crystals,” Nilla says from a nearby overhang, pointing out and up at the internal horizon where a series of softly glowing lights form a path across the underside of the surface stretching out of view to an unknown origin and end point. “They look processed, that must be where they went after recovering in this settlement.”

Piper and Bay join her by the cliff and the three of them gaze out and around the planet's hollow interior.

“Hidden away from the constant meteor strikes, this planet is quite beautiful.” Piper scans the purple tinted sky and how the crystallised faces of the crusts underside reflect slight hints of coloured light around the surface.

Bay's vision is immediately drawn to the two poles where the hands of icey fingers slowly drip downward, growing towards the dense heart of the planet.

Nilla can't help but fixate on that heart, the Black hole warping the light around itself making an almost headache inducing kaleidoscope of colours around its event horizon.

“Everyone, you have to see this!” Tarra's shout pulls them out of their focus “Look at this fascinating symbol!” She points from where she's standing, halfway across the stone bridge, into a doorway at a large glowing pattern adorning the opposite wall.

The symbol seems to draw her in, and the team follows. Below the symbol is a winding branch of Nomain writing. Tarra begins to read it out.

[ **THATCH** : This knowledge is too dear to lose: Here is everything we can recall about the signal we encountered while aboard the Vessel. ]

“Thatch?!” Piper Exclaims, the name triggering a dusty memory in the back of her mind of the various past envoys "This is Escall's Clan!”

“Impossible, Escall's clan disappeared eons ago” Bay replies

Tarra shushes him loudly before continuing to narrate the rest of the script.

[ **FILIX** : The signal looked like an eye: round, with a circle at the center much like a pupil. (Suppose the signal was looking for something.) ]

[ **FILIX** : The signal was older than the universe itself! This is the most significant detail. ]

[ **PLUME** : No Nomai clan has ever encountered anything like it! How can anything in this universe be older than the universe itself? ]

[ **THATCH** : Imagine what rare and profound knowledge it might offer. We must find this Eye of the universe. ]

“This is where they went, this is why they disappeared, they were in pursuit of knowledge.”

After Piper speaks the words the four of them share a moment of silence, Every Nomai in every Clan has heard about the myth of the Disappearance of Escall.

The Vessel that disappeared without a trace. Many say such a thing was impossible, that Escall never existed in the first place and it was just a tall tale made up to scare first time Clan Leaders. After all, it was the first and only time it happened and every Nomai knew the importance of the childhood lesson of ‘Tell someone where you’re going’.

For the few that actually remembered, Escall was very much real and the ones that had tried to find their clan had already given up hope that they would return. Agasta was the only one who still had the determination left and even Hyssop, her son, spoke excitedly about leading his own clan and bringing them home (even though he was far, far, too young and wouldn't be able to lead his own clan until at least a few more decades).

  
“There are some murals painted below.” the youngling says, looking down at her feet and through the grate to the floor below. The others follow her gaze.  
“Perhaps we could use that as a start to learn more about what happened to Escall.” Piper steps out of the building, searching across the cliffs for a path to the floor below.


	3. Sun Bleached Sand

Mint's shuttle sailed smoothly towards the sunburnt pair of planets.

"Look at those towers!" Citra watches the sibling planet as it orbits around their destination. "It seems our crashed friends have been doing well for themselves."

"Of course, they must have colonised both planets," Mint says scanning across each tower. "But those structures don't seem like any kind of settlement." He focuses on the solar panels on each of the poles. "Why would they need so much power? Those solar arrays are almost as big as the Twin itself!"

"Perhaps we'd best focus on the Escape pod first," Saffron chimes in behind them. "We'll find them and then ask about the towers."

The shuttle touches down on the Twin, planting its four folding legs into the sand filled lake on its surface. The crew hop down onto the soft surface and gather around the crash site.

"How old is this crash?" Citra steps between the exposed prongs of the Escape pods tail. "It's completely covered with sand, there's no way it could be recent."

Anise scans the horizon "There are no signs of where they went aside from the sibling planet's towers."

"They must have migrated to the other Twin when the sand started filling the rivers of this Twin," Saffron says, pushing around some of the sand with her heavy boot. "But for this much sand to fill the planet? Where would it have even come from?"

Almost as an answer a distant rumbling is heard growing in the distance.

"A quake! Be careful everyone" Mint announces to the group.

"Hold on, the ground is definitely moving," Citra looks down at his feet and watches as the fine sand slowly slithers across the surface "But it isn't shaking.”

"The sand must be draining into some lower level cave systems." Anise hypothesizes.

"But how would it have risen out to force the survivors to move to the other Twin?" Mint rebuts.

The rumbling grows louder, drawing the groups attention to the sky over them. The Tower Twin danced into view, this time with a bridge of sand connecting the two planets. The group watch in astonishment as they slowly sink into the emptying lake.

"The sand transfers between the binary system!" Citra says, an excited tone in his voice. "That's amazing, I've never heard of anything like this!"

“How much of the sand do you think will drain?” Mint asks, turning his gaze to the emerging ship.

“All of it, hopefully,” Anise answers. “Perhaps after the crash the survivors left along a dried up river bed.”

“Hopefully it drains quickly too. If this system is home to planets like these Twins, I can't imagine how that other planet's Volcanic moon is treating Piper and her team,” Mint clasps his chin in his hands, naturally worried.

“I'm sure she will be fine, you wouldn't have sent her out if you knew she couldn't handle it.” Saffron places a comforting hand on his thick shoulder pads.

Mint smiles at her through his helmet and nods. “Right, all we can do for now is focus on our own investigation. Anise, stay by the Pod and contact us when enough of the sand has cleared that we can investigate further.”

She nods and turns back to the emerging ship, trying to estimate how much time it would take to sufficiently uncover.

“Me, Saffron and Citra will investigate the horizon for any other signs of this Clan on this Twin.”

“We should spread out,” Citra adds, dividing the horizon around them into rough thirds with a few gestures “that would be the best method to find any other signs of the survivors.”

Mint nods in agreement. He squints at the distance where a spec of colour sits on the orange stone. Definitely some kind of structure. That would be his chosen direction.

“Watch for the Tower Twin and make sure it's sand doesn't pull you away, and do not stray too far.” He gives the command before turning off and walking into the distance.

* * *

Saffron clambers up the eroded faces of the dried out planets rock formations. The surface was not the kindest to traverse. In between the scorching heat of the sun and the irregular height of the terrain it was somewhat hard work.

A notification pops up inside her helmets display, the gravity controllers in her suit were running low on power. Thankfully the Twins close proximity to the sun meant that she wouldn't have to worry about a slow recharge.  
She sits back against the orange wall, pulling out a palm sized solar panel from the side of her utility belt and holding it out towards the harsh sunlight. Only after a few paces had she seen the roof of some kind of building sat on a rather flat area she could only assume to be one of the Siblings poles based on the orbit of the Tower Twins across the sky.

A grinding sound emanating from the ledge above her catches her attention. Perhaps some kind of structure attached to the building she saw before? The grinding was of stone on stone sliding over each other, the slow and steady constant drone seemed to imply it was some kind of time keeping device. Yet occasional bursts of another layer of movement, a piece moving faster at random increments, made her hypothesis uncertain.

Her helmet chimes, the battery is finished charging. She clips the solar panel back to her side and jumps up to the higher level, grabbing the edge of the cliff. As she pulls herself up she sees the deep grooves etched into the surface, she continues her gaze upwards along the concentric circles to the pedestal in the centre of the device.

Five components slide along the ground, each one with a unique symbol drawn in a recognisable glowing pigment. She steps over the first channel and inspects the circular design on the triangular stone as it steadily moves across the scrape marks of the rocky ground.

Saffron pauses, hypothesising about the large device's purpose again. Perhaps she better check the designs on the other stones. She turns to the centre, the best vantage point for viewing the device and takes the careful steps over the components.  
The central piece suddenly switches direction, almost knocking her off her feet had she not been watching it. She steps past it and to the central pedestal noting the design on the floor, two connected circular symbols recognisable as a simplified depiction of the Sibling planets they landed on, planet sized solar arrays and sand column included, that must make this device an orrery.

She looks across the pieces to the planets they now so clearly tracked.

“Strange, why would there be six markers for five planet?” she notes, paying closer attention to the sky and following each piece to its corresponding body. The final piece, the center most piece, seemed to behave far more erratically than the others. The marker never seemed to linger in one place and even changed direction with every other blink.

After a few moments of chasing it with her eyes, it stops. she follows the indicator up and notices the destroyed building across from her. That must have been what she saw to come here. The “roof” was the only part of the wall still standing high and the actual roof was collapsed inside.

“The crash survivors fled to the other sibling right? Of course the buildings on this planet would be abandoned and falling apart.” She tells herself.

A small something sits among the rubble inside the building. Not orange like the sunburnt floor, nor yellow like the building's stone. She starts to take a step closer to get a better look.

[ **ANISE** : Everyone, the sand has drained from the Pod. ]

The notification pings in the corner of her vision interrupts her thought.  
She better head back.


	4. First Movement (Misterioso)

“It seems both teams are underground now.” Cori says, adjusting the dials on his interface to help keep the teams tracking signal connected.

“That makes sense,” Moracia, the Vessels second(or technically third)-in-command, watches out the wide window looking between the two planets “The surface of these planets seem quite harsh.”  
A distinct hum of concerned intrigue is heard behind them.

“Rosmar? Is everything okay?” Moracia turns to her crewmate.

“there's a lot of little… weird things here, don't you think?” Rosmar explains, twisting the tips of her curled hair around her finger “Like as soon as we arrived here our Vessel missed its exit warp- by a significantly larger margin of error that expected with almost no discernible cause.”

“I've also taken a closer look at everything since Mint and Piper left,” She calls Moracia to the screen “I've been able to find evidence of structures on almost every planet here yet there hasn't been anyone to respond to our messages,” She gestures to the message log “And we haven't had any messages coming in. Surely someone must have seen our Vessel arrive, right?”

“We will have to see what Mint and Piper report back to us with and then we can figure out what is happening.”

“And where is their Vessel?” Rosmar continues, spewing her thoughts as she makes them “They must have crashed or lost it but there are no signs of it anywhere - a ship that size can't just disappear.”

There's a murmur across the crew as they provide their own thoughts to the quirks presented.

  


A circle of light slides across the back wall of the bridge, a focus of reflected sunlight quite small but still large enough to catch the attention of crew They quickly turn around to see a small ship passing across the sky. A fuel powered ship with a trail of flames kicking out of its rockets. It didn't seem like a Nomain ship, most Nomai constructions would run on reusable energy or even clean burning energy if they were ever desperate.

“Thymus-” Moracia begins.  
“Already on it!” A voice calls back from the upper deck, the Nomai it belonged to quickly pacing across the mezzanine to the window, scoping device in hand.

A closer inspection of the spacecraft seemed to show it was falling apart, pieces of sheet metal twisted in what could only be assumed to be undesirable ways and there was some kind of sparking coming from some kind of master circuit board that was- Thymus shifts the lenses zooming and focusing the scope- _Taped_ to the back of the ship? Definitely not a Nomain creation.

  


“Where is that ship going?” Moracia asks returning to the window to try and get a better view

Thymus estimates the ships flight path, following it with his scope to the forested planet their Vessel was currently hovering next to.

"There appears to be a Settlement inside one of the planet's craters."

The ship falls into the planet's atmosphere where some of the wooden planks (on a spaceship?) catch fire and a small trail of debris follows behind as it gets torn up. The whole rickety construction starts to shake violently and the front half snaps off, making Thymus wince as he tries to keep an eye on both halfs. A figure jumps from the remains and a parachute unfolds out behind them.

"The ship was destroyed but the pilot seems unharmed," he announces, focusing the scope to see who would put themself in such a poorly structured spacecraft. The pilot matched their ship, their space suit seemed more like a sewn together mess of various protective gear than a proper space faring suit.

  


"These people are clearly not as advanced as us," Moracia says "We must move our vessel to not be seen. We mustn't give them technological culture shock."

“Shall I inform Mint and Piper?” Rosmar says

“We will tell them where we are when they return with their shuttles, right now I just need us to move.”

“On it.” Cori plots a course moving them away from the planet and the Vessel smoothly follows.

“What if these people know of the clan that crashed here?” Thymus asks, still watching the unknown astronaut.

“There are Nomain structures on their planet” Rosmar add in “Perhaps they knew each other?”

“But if they did, why would they still use such a poorly constructed spacecraft?”

Moracia's question is left unanswered, the crew look around at each other unsure what to think.

  


“Perhaps we could send a team down to investigate?” Cori suggests

The crew looks at their commander, Moracia shakes her head.

“No. That could lead to potentially more severe consequences for both us and them.”

“But, what if-”

“No, Cori,” Moracia stands her ground “For all we know they could be Hostile.”

“Going down to investigate if they are hostile would be a good way of finding out what happened to the Clan that was here; we could also use that to save time for Mint and Piper and get them back before anything could happen to them and us.”

Moracia grumbles. As much as she didn't like it, Cori was right, they must send an investigation team down. Even if there wasn't a potential threat they would more than likely need to send one to investigate the Nomain structures Rosmar had detected.

“Thymus, find Prika. She and her apprentice shall investigate the planet.”


	5. Underground Caves

The four gathered in the cool cave, punched into by the front of the previously buried Escape pod. Sand still at their feet but continuously, and slowly, sinking away from around them and being pulled up to the surface almost impossibly by a column of sand near the cave wall, much smaller and safer than the interplanetary one roaring outside. Each one of the team with a small light shining from their helmets, providing enough light for them to see each other and to see into the pitch black darkness of the cave.

“While I was waiting for you to return to the pod I took the time to investigate a little myself,” Anise gestures at the cave around them, Small blue notes sit at the side of the few mouths of connecting caves.  
“Thankfully no one was hurt, and the survivors managed to build a shelter inside this sibling planet's labyrinthian cave system.”

“That is excellent news.” Mint replies

Anise points to four spirals of connected script against the wall “This is the start of a path 'Coleus' says they took to reach the settlement cave,” She walks over the the start of a winding path downward still buried in the sand “Interestingly, it seems when they crashed the sand was flowing in the reverse direction; Which should mean the sand will drain enough for us to safely get to them.”

“I can't wait to see them, I must ask them about the Tower Twin’s towers.” Citra says eagerly leading the way into the cave as it turns downwards. The rest of the team follow staying close to the cave wall as the falling sand reveals a deeper growing drop beside them.

After curling around another rising pillar of sand another sign of the crashed clan emerges, a few synthesized bridges leading down the segmented layers of the cave, each with another note written on the floor.

[ **COLEUS** : The path to the shelter site is somewhat convoluted, so follow the instructions ahead closely! ]

  
[ **COLEUS** : To reach the shelter site, walk forward until you meet the sandfall at the pit, then turn left. Continue to the room filled with rock column formations and climb upward through the opening above them. ]  
[ **COLEUS** : The sand here is rising, so you must be cautious but swift. ]

The team follow the instructions precisely, slipping round the emptying sand pit and following the winding tunnel until it opens out into the room their written guide detailed. They leap up through the cave ceiling, giving Saffron a hand upwards as she wasn't expecting to need her grav-boots again so soon.

They spot the caves continuation in the darkness and continue the trek through another samey twisting tunnel.  
“We are lucky they left notes, I would hate to be lost in these caves.” Anise says, looking down into the lower levels from the drop in front of them and then following the sand pulled upwards as it slinks away through a crack up to the cave systems upper levels.  
“Especially if the sand was reversed.” Citra adds, reading the next step left for them aloud.

[ **COLEUS** : Be cautious crossing the chasm ahead. The bridge Melorae and I crafted will do its job, but it isn't strong. ]  
[ **COLEUS** : Once on the far side, look for the tunnel hidden behind the falling sand. Follow it, and you'll reach the shelter site. ]

“Indeed, the bridge doesn't appear very stable.” Citra leans down at the yellow planks, a great contrast to the monotonal orange splotches of the hidden miles of caves. The bridge wobbles as the sand rushes up between the ends of its slats.  
“Go one at a time, stick to the wall so the sand does not throw you off balance.” Mint instructs as he quickly slips over the bridge. The others follow, with their leader grabbing them when they get close enough and pulling them across the final steps.

“Now we must pass through this sand wall.” Citra steps to the back of the cave sticking their arm into the sand column as it pulls away from the pile seeping in from somewhere unknown beneath them up to somewhere unknown above them.  
“It doesn't seem strong enough to pull us away,” He says feeling the pull on his arm “But we must be careful, we should come up with a safe way to pass through just in case.”

The group take a moment to rest, though the constant hiss of sand echoing through the planets interior makes a somewhat annoying distraction.

  
“Perhaps we should pass through in a chain, in such a way that we have the weight of the remaining three to help keep the one crossing anchored.” Saffron pitches

The team nods in agreement and link hands, stepping far enough away from each other to ensure they pass through one at a time. Through the sand one final instruction waits for them.

[ **COLEUS** : You're doing well! There's only a little farther left to go now until you reach the shelter site. You can rest there. Hurry, before the sand comes! ]

Another chasm dropped down into the darkness in front of them, dotted with a few cacti newly sprouting out of the cracks in the rocks. A welcoming patch of green to break up the orange stone walls.

“We must be close, the settlements water and oxygen supplies must be allowing for the growth of these plants even while completely underground.” Citra says, leaning over one of the larger specimens and inspecting the young closed buds of its flower.

Anise steps carefully around the lip of the rocks, “How are we to cross this pit? Saffron's battery is almost entirely depleted.” she says watching out for the intruding thorns of another cactus sprouting beside her.

“I can return to the surface, it's no bother to me if I'm not present.” Saffron replies looking at the battery indicator on her H.U.D. and feeling a little guilty for holding the team back.

“No, I wouldn't want you to get lost on the way back,” Mint says as they formulate a method to cross the drop “Our Oxygen must be getting low too, we would be better to refill our supply inside the settlement than risk turning back.”

Everyone instinctively checks their Oxygen tank indicators. Roughly three-quarters empty, not enough to worry about but not enough for them to return.

“Citra, Anise,” The leader turns to them in the darkness “Make the jump over to the other side and make sure to get a firm foothold.”

The two leap the gap one after the other, pushing themselves higher with a burst of gravity at the exact moment before jumping.

“Now Saffron, try your best with what remains of your battery. Citra and Anise will catch you should you fall short.”

“Right.” she replies somewhat shakily, she takes a few paces back and jumps. Thankfully her boots and the short run up allow her to just reach the other side, Planting one foot on the cliff wall as her teammates grab her before she can fall.

Mint follows shortly after they step back and give him room to land.

Another sand wall to pass through and the group see a small light glowing ahead of them in the cave.

“This must be it!” Citra happily announces “A big heavy door to block out the sand!”

“Yes, yes! Let us not delay any longer in meeting them” Mint takes his place back at the front of the group and flicks the control to open the imposing door.

The door slides open noisily, the flourishing city full of life expected on the other side reveals itself to be just a dark damp cave.  
Mint stares through the doorway into the fuzzy darkness, unable to make out any features past the rough triangular shape of stalactites hanging from the caverns ceiling lit on their side by a single light shining out of an alcove on the rightmost wall of the cave.

“They must be on the other Twin,” Citra attempts to chase off the mild sense of dread creeping over the group “They must move to the Sibling planet that isn't covered in sand to stay safe.”

“I'm not so sure.” Saffron starts before she's interrupted by a short beeping.

“My Oxygen is critical! We must find somewhere to refill.” Anise steps into the cavern trying her best to look around in the darkness.

“Over here!” She follows a path around the edge of the city into the alcove where it appears a small garden has been planted; short grass dotted with even smaller flowers and young saplings intent on growing under the soft light despite the poor conditions. The rest of the team follow, clicking open the vents on their tanks and allowing the filters to draw in as much oxygen from the air around them as they could.

They take the moment to have another look at their surroundings. Four switches sit in front of them, labeled as lights. Mint flicks them all on flooding the city with light and revealing the crumbling remains of the city buildings, or half of the city since the sand was still slowly draining out through the cracks in the cave roof. Small winding paths partially carved into the walls and dotted with lights lead through all the different levels of the cavern as well as to the various buildings. All of them looked like they hadn't been lived in for years.

Saffron yelps, breaking the tense atmosphere. Everyone turns to look at her. She's standing in the garden, frozen, looking down at the determined plant life. Citra steps forward first and follows her gaze to a peculiarly dense patch of otherwise struggling plants. In the middle of it, past the saplings and the flowers, lies the instantly recognisable off white of a skeleton. The remains of what can only be a long dead Nomai.

“Oh- Oh my...” She tries to form a thought, too taken aback by disgust.

“The sand!” Mint clenches a fist and gestures wildly to the rising pillar inside the city “It must have burst through the ceiling, crushing everyone and everything in this City”

“This couldn't have been suffocation,” Citra rebuts, leaning over to inspect the bones and trying to find any sign of who they could belong to “These plants would have been suffocated as well”

The dread creeps back over the group. the scouting of the surface, the trek through the cave, had it all been for nothing? The escape pod led to nothing but a sand filled tomb. The leader was angry, frustrated at the time and risk they'd spent traversing the caves aided by the long dead Coleus. He looked to the large open door they had entered the city from, ready to take his team back up to the surface and away from the final resting place of the unfortunate survivors of the crash.

“Mint, you have to see this.” Anise brings back his attention and directs it to the back wall of the alcove. A cluster of blue notes sit on the wall, a record of a debate spiraling out from a central question.

[ Should we build the Sun Station to power the Ash Twin Project? ]

The two of them take a moment to read the archived thoughts etched into the stone.  
“We mustn't waste this expedition. It is a shame they are no longer with us, but we should learn more of them so that we can tell the rest of the colony who they were and what they achieved” Mint announces.


	6. The Frozen City

Piper leads her team across the underside of the empty planet aided by the large humming gravity distorting crystals hanging off the thick crust.

“These are just fascinating.” Tarra says, measuring the height of the glowing crystal against herself “Their sheer size and refined structure are amazing even without the latent gravitational properties.”

The group pause, stopping to join her and gather round admiring the crystal.

”Our stranded friends have certainly done well for themselves,” Bay says smiling to himself “Just imagine what they've been able to create in a permanent settlement.”

He follows the path to the glacial pole of the planet

“Soon we will be reunited with the ancestors of Escall, and the profound knowledge this 'Eye of The Universe' must have given them” Piper can't help feeling giddy at the fact her and her clan were going to be the ones to reconnect this long lost clan to the larger family of all Nomai. She can almost picture the same giddiness on her darling Mint's face when he makes the same discovery on his planet's investigation.

“Let's keep moving everyone, I'd rather not keep my feet the wrong way round for too long.” She announces to her team, giving a look to Nilla still clutching her hand and trying not to seem like she was pressing her eyes closed to avoid having to see the upside down world around her.

“We're almost there dear, don't worry” She adds quietly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

  


"Just look at these structures," Bay points across the vast insides of the planet; to the right was some kind of twisting tower hanging partially beneath the thick layer of rock with a great mouth pointing outside, and to the left stood another tower almost completely sealed except for the long pillars it stood on, who could say what kind of knowledge would be found inside?

In front of them, between the long frozen drips of the glacial poles something else hung inside the crust though obscured by the opaque layers of ice hints of the clans permanent settlement peaked out from the smooth stalactites (or were they stalagmites while they were walking upside down on the inside of the planet?)

Another structure hung below the city, almost touching the black hole in the centre of the shell.

"That must be their Black hole forge." Tarra identifies it

  


* * *

  


The impossible path continues forward leading them towards a crevice in the ice formation.

"The path moves up for the final stretch." Bay follows the now smaller crystals across the wall of ice.

"Down." Tarra corrects him

"Technically, it is sideways." he retorts, climbing into the gravity field and giving a hand to pull the others up. They quickly make their way down the blue sheet making sure to step firmly to avoid slipping on the slick ice.

The path ends at the top of a beige stone building, stopping short of the floor. Bay hops down first and offers to help the others down. Tarra happily skips over him while Piper lowers Nilla into his arms.

“It’s a little worn down, they must be getting low on resources for repairs. We came just at the right time.” Tarra says looking around at debris from the hole in the ceiling they had just passed through.

“Hello,” she calls down the staircase at the side of the room before descending “We're sorry to drop in but we heard your distress signals.“

“There we go, back right side up.” Bay gives Nilla a quick hug before putting her to the ground and then reaches out to give her mother a hand while she steps down.

“I hope you ca-” downstairs, Tarra stops mid sentence “Bay! Get down here.”

Everyone looks to the steps. He quickly follows.

“Is everything okay Tarra?” Piper asks setting foot on the first step

“Stay up there-” They both respond half yelling

“Just for a moment please, Piper.” Tarra finishes calmly

A few minutes pass as the two whisper to each other on the floor below. The leader stays put, waiting upstairs, but can't help feeling the unease creeping up the flight of steps beside her.

Bay returns up the steps and bends over to be the same height as the groups youngest member.

“How are you holding up? Is the suit getting uncomfortable? Are your Oxygen tanks well?” he asks to Nilla while tipping his head at the staircase, geturing for Piper to head down. She quickly descends as the two converse.

  


“Tarra, what happened?” Piper asks in a hushed voice. She reaches the end of the steps and turns into the room, freezing in place and eyes widening in shock.

In the middle of the room there was a table with four chairs pulled up neatly around it. The scene looked like a normal family meal which made the juxtaposition of the skeletons sitting in the seats all the more obscene.

Piper can't make herself say anything, she manages to take a step closer and inspects the closest body to her. The bones were still so close together she could almost imagine them as a living Nomai laid over the table. She silently thanks her team for acting quickly so Nilla didn't have to imagine it too.

“This is horrible,” Tarra whispers “If this is just one family then that must mean...”

She doesn't want to finish the thought.

“What do we do now?” Piper asks “We've already come this far.”

“We should at least investigate more around this settlement, to try to find out more about that signal they encountered.” Tarra steps around the table and takes a good look at all of the dinner’s participants “So that their knowledge won't have been lost.”

“But what about-” She points up

“If you want to take her back to the ship me and Bay will take a look on our own.”

“But she's been listening to us all talk excitedly about meeting these ancestors, she should at least be told as well.”

Tarra shrugs “It's your decision, I'll do whatever you need me to.”

She nods slowly, thinking about her next steps as she turns to head back up the stairs back to the other half of her team.

  


“Piper,” Bay turns as he hears her coming back up the steps “What is our next course of action?”

“We should-” Piper starts to speak before she can finish thinking, her pause catches everyone's attention.

If only her other half was here; a Volcanic moon, a Black hole, a Crumbling shelter and a Dead city. The danger she had put her team in, was it worth it? Mint would have been able to help provide the input she needed. She looks at her team. At Tarra blocking the steps down, At Bay stood ready for her order and at Nilla who she dragged with them out of selfishness.

No, not selfishness. Out of necessity. She was young but she had helped as much as or even more than anyone else could have, she was an intelligent member which is what the leader knew the team needed.

Piper takes a deep breath.

  


“Unfortunately, it has become clear that Escall's clan is no longer with us.” She speaks slowly, confidently planning out her words as she says them “We may not be able to reconnect them with the rest of the Colony, but what we can do is return with their knowledge. This 'Eye of The Universe', the Signal that led them here, we must pass on this wisdom they had risked themselves to find.”

“The Clan is long dead; so while it will not be gruesome, it will be hard to walk through this city they used to call their home.” she pauses and looks to Nilla “Nilla, my dear, You've come this far and I'm sorry for exposing you to this harsh planet; should you wish to return to the shuttle we will happily take you back.”

The youngest shakes her head “I would rather stay with you.” her voice is shaky, uncertain of how to feel about Piper's speech.

“Then we will go cautiously and safely.” Piper extends her hand out, Nilla takes it and turns to Bay extending her other hand to him.

“Lead the way Piper.” He says, taking the hand in his own.

Piper leads the team downstairs and out the door.

The doorway opens out to view the whole city unobscured by the glacial ice. Crumbling bridges and buildings fixed in place over the Black hole sleeping below. The team takes a moment to take it all in. The bridge leading away from the doorway is thin, they shuffle into single file and start to make their way into the city.

  


“Hold on,” Tarra stops the group “I'm getting a lot of interesting reading from the environment here.”

She taps the side of her helmet to indicate that something is showing up on her suit’s H.U.D. and pulls off an instrument from her belt, tapping its screen to wake it up.

“I'm getting weird radiation reading from some kind of Exotic matter.”

“Where?” Piper leans over her shoulder to see the more detailed report on the devices screen

“Everywhere!” She waves the reader around watching the various levels fluctuating “Something very unstable and extremely potent is lingering closeby.”

Tarra slowly steps to the front making sure the exotic matter isn't anywhere near the team. The bridge forks right, leading into another building. Tarra takes a step towards it and the reading spike.

“Over here. There's a massive pocket of it around this building.”

Still moving slowly she kneels down and picks up a palm sized chunk of rock from the debris on the path, she throws it at the building and a colourful trail of blazing radiation follows it soon after it leaves her hand.

“This is not good, I can't say if it's lethal but we must avoid it.” She squints to try and see into the building, the inside is covered in small crystal formations no doubt connected to the exotic matter surrounding it. She scans the path for similar crystals, thankfully they appear much less frequently than those inside the pocket of matter. She picks one up off the floor just in front of her and quickly seals it inside a container attached on the belt at her side.

“We must go slowly, if that matter has anything to do with Escall's clans demise then we too should stay away.”


	7. First Contact

Prika and Caps sat face to face in their shuttle. A smaller model, older and mostly unused, given to them to ensure the best chance the residents of the Wooded planet would not see them as they land.

The guided shuttle sails smoothly over the grassy plains and plants itself closely next to a large patch of trees. A landing site away from the Alien settlement and hidden from view. The two step out of their ship and stretch out their cramped muscles.

“Hopefully the flight will be the only bad part of this mission.” Caps says, unfolding the map of the planet's surface that was hastily put together to show the path to the Settlement from the Landing site.

“I'm glad you are hopeful,” Prika leans over beside him to view the map “Which way is it to the crater?”

“If we travel straight across the planet this way we should get there quickly.” He orients himself to the map and points across the horizon. Prika takes the lead half running half walking in the gestured direction.

  


“You don't think they're actually malicious do you?”

“I don't know, that's what we're here to figure out.”

“You could still make a prediction,” Caps places a finger on the map figuring out their location on it “We've still got a way before we get there.”

“This is a potentially dangerous mission, I'd rather keep focused on what's happening and keep us safe.”

Caps shrugs, there was no point debating with her. He takes a look at the map again while still following their approximate location with his finger. He tries to look at the little town hiding in the crater, holding the map almost flat to his mask to try and make out the brown and grey smudges that they were briskly heading towards.

He tried to imagine what the residents might look like, he'd heard description of other Alien life from messages sent over by other clans and at the Festivals he'd attended of course, but now he was the one going to impress friends and strangers with colourful stories of their culture and precise descriptions of their fur; or maybe they had scales, or feathers? Maybe they had whiskers or maybe claws. He tosses around various features in his mind, coming up with as many different combinations as possible.

These people better be friendly, they were both space faring species (or at least trying to be) they were both trying to get out there and see the universe. He smiles to himself thinking about travelling with a new alien best friend. New questions kept getting added to his mental pile as he let his mind wander. Would they be able to communicate? Could he see one of their ships? Would they let him try their cuisine? Do they make music?

  


A sharp jab in his side topples his tower of thoughts.

"Caps! Focus," Prika says while jabbing him once again "How much further to the investigation point?"

He looks at their surroundings and compares them to the green shapes on the map.

"Looks like if we follow this river it will take us to the waterfall that overlooks most of the Village." He traces up and points to the river laying just ahead of them. It meandered across the forested plains to the left where a lip of grey stone was visible between the thick shrubbery.

"This planet seems like a much nicer Haven than the others in this harsh system."

"But they appeared to avoid it, they only built a few small surface structures." Prika interrupts

“Yes, but it is still true.” He says rotating the map to follow the curve of the river “Endless grass and towering Sequoias, much better than a volcanic moon or raging giant.”

  


* * *

  


The roaring of the waterfall drew closer, the edge of the crater now visible and the two were able to see parts of some cobbled together buildings taller than the rest. They crouched as they walked, getting lower to the ground with each step until they were practically laying at the side of the cliff.

The river sloped downwards to a higher level of the crater before dropping into the waterfall which meant that their vantage point didn't actually provide that good of a view if they wanted to keep a safe distance. There was also some kind of building closeby to the cliff they sat on separated from the rest and built noticeably different. Prika and Caps decide their next step is to follow the crater anti-clockwise to move away from the structure and find a better overlook.

  


“Look!” Caps points across to the far side of the crater. A tower sticks up out of the Village almost reaching up out of it. On top of the tower sits the back half of the destroyed ship with other pieces of the broken off scrap scattered around it.

A mechanical whirring starts shaking the tower, The missing half of the ship was being raised up to the top using some kind of mix between an elevator and a crane.

“They're going to repair it?” Prika says leaning closer over the edge “That thing is useless even as scrap metal.”

The two pull out their trinoculars, holding them over the eyeholes of their helmets to get a better look at the strewn ship components.

“Seems like they gathered most of it.” Caps says, zooming in and sweeping over the pieces “Landing gear, Pilot's seat, Warp core, Thruster bank.”

“Warp core?” Prika searches among the junk “How did they get a Warp core?”

“See, they must know the Nomai clan here!”

“That's not necessarily a good thing.”

  


A cacophony of hammering and sparks erupt from the platform, two of the inhabitants donned in minimal protective gear start what could only be the long task of repairing the broken ship.

Caps' eyes wander down the tower to the rest of the village. At the centre of the bottom a geyser pool lays, the rivers falling into the Village funnel downwards into it where the water seeps away into the ground through gravel. The rest of the residents were gathered in a clearing beside the geysers and their water spray. A tingle of excitement runs the length of Caps' spine, There they were! Blue scaled, four eyed, wide eared and in all their alien splendor.

The pilot sat in the middle of a fell log with other adults beside them and the children sat on the dirt in front. He looked closely at the members of the gathering; The Pilot who must have been sharing their spaceflight gestured wildly as they spoke, One of the adults appeared to be taking notes of every other thing they said, One on their other side held their equipment checking over it for damage, another much older member interrupted the story and the conversation stopped for a moment. The Pilot reached into one of their many pockets and pulled out a piece of metal, showing it to them and putting it to their mouth. A Harmonica! An Instrument!

Caps smiled, able to see a part of himself in the Villagers. There was no way they couldn't be friendly.

  


While her partner swam in his own enthusiasm Prika was busy inspecting the rest of the crater. Spread out from the circle a few buildings stood slotted between the bushes and trees. She tried to guess what each one was used for. A few looked like houses, one a saw mill, another a storehouse. The buildings, like their owners, seemed.. How could she put it nicely? Primitive. These crater dwellers were at the start of their space program, they seemed to have barely got a hold on their own planet and yet they were trying to get a look at the rest of their star system. Had something, or someone, struck wanderlust into their hearts?

One thing appeared clear. The residents weren't hostile or at least if they were they definitely couldn't take out an entire Nomai clan. Yet the fact they had their hands on Nomain tech bugged her.

Was it given to them by the clan as some kind of experiment, seeing if by giving them a little push they could help them into space? Why? That could cause many potential problems and throw off their technological development.

If they took the scraps of technology they could find then what does that mean for the clan that was here, did the clan choose to evacuate the planet when they found the existing dwellers and didn't have time to collect everything?

  


“What do you think?” Caps breaks the silence

“We made a good choice to keep the Vessel out of sight.” Prika replies “Thankfully I think our initial impression might have been wrong, but I'm still unsure.”

“Well I personally am a fan of the Haveners!”

Prika turns to him, giving him a look that could be seen even through their helmets

“Haveners: Residents of Wooden Haven.”

“I hope you don't expect either of those names to stick.”

He shrugs

“Hey, let's go down and introduce ourselves.” Caps says starting to stand

“What? No!” Prika yanks him back to the ground

"I was joking.” He laughs ”I know if I step out of line Moracia will kill both of us and then you will kill me after that.”

“We should still take more observations anyway, right?” He says half a moment later

“As much as it'll fuel your enthusiasm, you are right.” Prika begrudgingly replied “It's just to be sure, understand?”

Caps nods while putting his trinoculars back to his helmet.


	8. High Energy Lab

The echoing hiss fades as the last piles of sand slip away from the lowest levels of the city. Mint's team waited at the very bottom of the cavern, watching the final remnants appear out of the sand.

“There it is, The High Energy Lab.” Citra steps across the floor to the top of the heavyset doorframe growing out of the sand.

“Hopefully we'll be able to get inside.” Anise looks back up at the Sunless City's higher districts. The 'Eye Shrine district' was blocked off by some kind of exotic matter which was deemed to be potentially dangerous, A real shame for whatever this 'Eye' could be and its importance to be given a shrine. Beside that was the path to the Gravity cannon, another disappointment blocked by the alien matter. If Mint's geographical sense was to be trusted then the Cannon was accessible from the surface, if his assumption that it was the large and wide twisted tower he'd explored on the first half of their expedition.

The Anglerfish Overlook district, where they had entered the city from, was pretty much self explanatory. The linked Stepping Stone district was very much as much of a maze as the rest of the Twins cave systems and while the team tried to explore every little nook they all were secretly happy about not being able to find the supposed other entrance into the angler fossil's creepy home.

  


The High Energy Lab, or at least the trailhead to it, was the final district at the very bottom of the city. A place that sounded important, maybe it could provide some answers for the burning questions that Mint and his team was hoping to get from those who used to live here.

Citra opened the door, rolling the vision-tracking switch around the top of the frame and letting it slide open.

“Looks good so far.” Mint says, stooping into the corridor and taking a look as far as his light will let him. Another light helped him see just how far the cave went, attached to the left wall some kind of energy conduit was pulsing with a lightly glowing blue energy. Citra guessed it was probably the more appropriately sized solar array that he'd seen on the surface. Next to a square spiraled ruin and some kind of window that he didn't get a chance to look into before the Tower Twin passed overhead sucking the sand out of the canyon as he was trying to stand in it.

  


“Let's go.” The leader waves them forward once the sand level drained enough for all of his team to stand comfortably in the passage “Looks like we've got a bit of a walk again.”

“Hopefully it's just a straight shot this time.” Citra adds following closely behind

“Stay with the cable.” Anise says kicking away the sand to uncover it faster “It's still powered so their lab should still be functional right?”

“What do you think they were experimenting with?” Citra asks.

“You don't think that it had anything to do with the Dangerous matter do you?”

“If it does we must find out to prevent anyone else from making it.”

“Chasm!” Mint calls, interrupting their conversation “Another bridge, it seems about as stable as the last one.”

Barely visible in the darkness the almost destroyed bridge spanned the wide pit that cut them off.

“Cross one at a time and cross quickly, before the drop becomes lethal.” Mint instructs and gestures for them to follow him over.

The sand wall provides only a momentary obstacle as the upwards force helps push the team onto the path on the other side of the pit.

The tunnel continues before opening out upwards, a long grav-lift leads them upwards almost to the surface confirmed by a window carved into the stone that gave a view of the planet wide canyon wrapping around the Cave Twins equator.

  


One final lift brings them into the Lab, they funnel out of the entrance into the surprisingly well kept room. Mint's eyes wander to the large design above and in front of them, two squared spiral arms connected at the centre by a pair of linked squares.

On the floor parallel rows of copper conduits run from a similar sigil of linked square sockets and wrap behind them heading up the wide staircases, Saffron follows them to a larger array of pulsing conduits coming down from a solar array on the surface.

“Over here, Basic warp cores.” Citra leans over inspecting each one.

“Were they trying to craft them without a Black hole forge?” Mint joins him “That process could have been very dangerous, only a few clans have managed to correctly grasp the creation of warp technology.”

“But if they were this place wouldn't be in such functional condition, they must have been testing something else.” Citra thinks for a moment before sliding out one of the cores from it's slot on the wall and twisting it around in his hands. The craftsmanship was very high quality; the glass was crystal clear, the suspended singularity held perfectly in the centre and the case was sealed seamlessly along every edge. He went to return it to its slot but paused before doing so, he passed a glance to the empty sockets that had greeted them overcome with intrigue.

He grabbed a blackhole core with his other hand and inserted them both into the sigil, the familiar hum of a nearby blackhole audible from the otherside of the shutter. He flicks the long switch to open it and as expected the pair of singularities were waiting on the other side.

“I don't understand what this could be for,” Mint looks between the White and Black hole “Why would they need warp technology in a permanent settlement? They wouldn’t have been going anywhere.”

“Maybe it was to get across to the Tower Twin?”

“Would that not be what the Gravity cannon is for?”

  


* * *

  


Anise joins Saffron at the second level, watching the now fully covered Tower Twin orbit across the sky from the tall window.

“The siblings look so much different now the sand has finished transferring over.” She steps closer to the window looking down at the vast canyon. The Cave Twin was almost sliced in half, the constant passing of thousands of tonnes of sand must have carved every curve into the rocky terrain.

Anise turns to Saffron who was firmly grasping a scroll in her hands while reading the contents of another.

"Experiment notes?"

"Yeah," Saffron nods "If I'm following correctly, they've somehow discovered time travel using the Warp cores."

"What? That can't be correct."

Saffron points to one of the arcs "that's what 'Pye' thought, but when 'Ramie' added more energy into the core it worked. They received something through the white hole before it entered the black hole."

Anise shuffles closer, reading the notes for herself.

"But how did no one else discover this?"

Saffron could only shrug in response. Behind them a switch wraps around the cables of the solar array, sending out its pulses to a single cable that runs out the window and off into the distance. That must be the line they followed to get to the high energy lab. On the opposite side the energy conduit travels downstairs, splitting in a decorative pattern that leads into the warp cores the other half of the team were looking over.

“Why don't we see if this still works?” Anise says to Saffron while moving the switch.

Mint immediately notices the change in the floor below him even while staring into the test chamber.

"What are you two doing?" He call up to them

"Throw something in!" Saffron calls back

"What? Why?"

"Just do it!"

Mint looks at Citra, he shrugs before heading back into the entryway to find something to toss into the test chamber. He returns with a dusty old water flask.

"Is this something you're going to watch as well?" Citra shakes the flask above their head at them.

"Of course." Anise says joining them with Saffron close behind "Go on, Throw it."

Citra checks with the Leader, who gives a nod to continue. He winds back and throws the item through the window

"What the Hell?" They both cuss, jumping back in unison.

As soon as he lets go the bottle flies straight from his hand into the black hole. At almost the same time the bottle flies out of the white hole towards them and breaks open on the test room floor.

Citra spends a few moments sputtering at the singularities. Mint gives Anise a puzzled look that penetrates through his helmet.

"Time travel experiment!" She replies gesturing to the scroll Saffron was still holding. "I can't believe it, this is amazing what this clan has discovered!"

"That just opens more questions," Mint replies "What would they be doing that requires time travel? And how come nothing like this happened to anyone else's clan?"

"I have no idea but there's still more we can find here, I'm heading back upstairs." she excitedly runs back up the steps.

"Mint, they also mentioned warping from other locations," Saffron says once Anise was gone "Maybe that means Piper will have some luck finding any survivors?"

"Maybe, but I can't wait to tell her about this." he smiles as he imagines his look of shock mirrored on her face. "What else did they say in their research notes?"

"Come take a look for yourself." Saffron says, leading him upstairs.


	9. Eye Shrine District

Tarra leads the team forward, stepping slowly and broadly sweeping her reader to avoid any other large pockets of the exotic matter. The City was made of four districts connected with a vertical walkway that used some kind of gravity anchoring tile.

The lowest district, the School district and where they had entered the city, was almost entirely inaccessible. Above that was the Meltwater district where there were homes and a communal space in which a discussion about crafting an Advanced warp core took place, there also appeared to be a path to the surface but Piper suggested they explore the rest of the city before returning.

The Black Hole Forge was seemingly inaccessible too, one of the towers connecting the four levels of the city had collapsed onto the other destroying both along with the main path to the District. Hopefully there was another path they could take.

  


The Eye Shrine district was their final destination. The path to it diverged from the city, wrapping around the ice out of view to the left side. That seemed like a good sign as the giant pocket of dangerous matter was clinging to the centre of the city. The team carefully stepped through the district passing through a few more residents' homes before finding the Shrine itself.

The Shrine was an open space tucked into the glacier at the very back of the district. A few helpful trees stood ready to refill their oxygen tanks and sat between them were skeletons still deep in thought. A large window adorning the Eye's symbol reflected light down onto three questions and Escall's clans discussion of them.

[ What is the Eye of the universe? ]

[ What is the Eye's signal? ]

[ How can the Eye be older than the universe itself? ]

The only answers were speculation.

“Is that it?” Tarra says somewhat disappointed “Did they not find it?”

The team shares a look.

“There has to be something else here. They were stranded for so long,” Bay scans around the room “They couldn't have learned nothing.”

“If only we could get to the rest of the city.” Piper looks over the stone tablet to the Black hole and the ruins above “There might have been actual answers there.”

“Perhaps we should head to the surface from the Meltwater path,” Tarra suggests pointing across to the District “There could be a surface entrance to the Forge district or more structures to investigate.”

Piper nods, taking a last look at the Golden symbol above them before leading the way out.

  


* * *

  


Bay leads the way, splashing through the shallow river of bitterly cold water and out of the frosty cave to the surface. The frigid pole was almost unrecognisable as the planet they had originally landed on. The smoothed out layers of snow and ice seemingly unbeaten by the rain of meteors (though a stray one did occasionally crash down) and as the team climbed out of the river of water they spotted remains of an unrecognisably destroyed building.

“There,” Piper spots a less destroyed building peeking over the snow and begins heading over to it “We should get under cover and out of the cold.”

As they headed closer the remains of the structure became clearer, some kind of Square ruin similar to that on the underside of the city and, as predicted, some kind of shelter on the surface that housed the entrance to the city.

The ice was creeping into the tunnel that the grav-lift used to lower down into the city, enough to noticeably shrink the diameter of the hole.

“Looks like one of us is going to be left behind for a while.” Tarra eyes Bay and mentally compares them to the hole, he might've just fit but she'd never miss an opportunity to take a dig at him.

“Tarra!” Piper half heartedly scalds her.

“It's fine,” Bay replies before turning down to Nilla who had been firmly attached to his hand since leaving the Eye shrine “We ought to get you back to the shuttle, it's become a long adventure for us all hasn't it?”

She silently nods.

“Stay safe, take a rest if you need it.” Piper says waving them off as they quickly head back to the mouth of the ice cave.

  


Piper and Tarra slip down back into the city, being placed at the top of the felled towers. They step out of the entryway and nauseatingly flip over onto the ceiling.

“I can't imagine living here and being used to walking on walls like this.” Tarra says looking down at the everpresent Black hole.  
“I feel nauseous just looking up at that, a Warpsmith must have iron nerves to work right next to them.” Piper comments as they follow the path around.

“I hope they never had anyone fall.” Tarra shivers slightly at the thought

“They had warp technology, they must have created some kind of return.”

There is a low rumble as the Black hole forge slides effortlessly along its rails up into the city, they wave a 'thank you' down to Bay at the Forge controls.

The Forge is a pear shaped droplet anchored into the ice by four hefty copper-coloured girders. From first glance whatever attuning device attached to the very tip of the Forge appears to have broken long ago but the rest seems intact thanks to the heavy duty casing constructed to protect it from the intense gravitational forces. The inside remains mostly unharmed, with a few archived conversations about the process and some notes about key warp core locations. Various components litter the room and Tarra pokes around at them trying to figure out how the attunement process worked.

In front of the Forge's window stands a statue, an enlarged bust of a generic Nomai. Piper steps around it inspecting it from all angles, there appears to be some kind of mechanical component to the statue; it's eyes are made of segments and some kind of pivot attaches at its base.

“I would have loved to see this place while it was functioning.” Tarra says while watching a rotating diagram on the wall.

“They seemed to have big plans for something,” Piper says reading the various notes left behind “It could be something in their search for the Eye. If only we could have seen more of the city. We might have actually been able to get some answers.”

“Hopefully Mint has had some better luck on the Binary planets,” Tarra steps closer to Piper, offering a little comfort for them “But I think we've about exhausted all that this City has to offer.”

“I agree, we should head back to the shuttle too.” Piper leads them out of the Forge “We will share what we've found with his team and plan out next steps from there.”

“In case we need to return, we should keep the other structures this clan has on this planet in mind.”

Piper nods as they follow the path back to the surface, processing their findings in her head into a report she can give back to the Vessel.


	10. Second Movement (Con Slancio)

“Moracia, I'm receiving a message from Mint,” Rosmar skims the writing on her screen “They've finished investigating and are going to start heading back to the shuttle.”

“Excellent, pass a message on for Piper that he's returning soon so we can have everyone on the bridge to collate their findings together.”

“I've also got another message from Prika, she says monitoring is going well and they have relocated to a different position around the crater.”

“Good. Keep that channel focused on her Cori.”

Cori nods still keeping track of the two teams.

  


A few moments later Piper enters back into the command centre followed closely by Tarra and her trusty recorder now full of notes of their expedition.

“Thank you for continuing to watch over the Vessel, Moracia, we had to make sure we got all our findings in order.”

“Of course. It's such a shame to hear about the Escape pods,” Moracia replies solemnly “The least we can do is make sure their story is told correctly.”

“And what a story it is!” Tarra adds “Some of it almost unbelievable. I have perished to not be telling it already.”

“We really must wait until Mint returns before sharing,” Piper takes Tarra by the excitedly waving recorder “Was there any good news from him?”

“I can't say for certain but it must be safe to assume they came to the same conclusion as you. He and his team found several surface structures buried in the sand and they've been underground since it started draining.” Moracia recaps the few messages passed to her. “Supposedly, they also have some interesting discoveries to share.”

Almost as if summoned Mint enters from the back of the bridge, followed closely by the rest of his team.

“Ah, Piper darling, you've returned too.” He leaps forward to give her an almost smothering hug “I hope that planet wasn't too hostile on you or the rest of your team.”

“You should have seen it,” She hugs back, suffocating him equally” A planet sized Geode with a black hole at its centre.”

“A black hole?” he slips out of the embrace “Of course, we found an incredible experiment on the Cave Twin using warp cores, they must have been able to make their own.”

“Yes yes, Terrene Geode houses the Black hole forge.” Piper nods excitedly “In fact they could so easily recreate the technology because this was Escall's Clan. The very pioneers of warp technology.”

The Vessel goes silent at the mention of the name.

“Escall?” Moracia blurts out “The Escall that disappeared?”

“The very same.” Tarra answers “We knew Escall disappeared but now we know why. They were chasing a Signal from something they called 'The Eye of The Universe'.”

“A mysterious signal older than the universe itself. They had to find it straight away but when they tried to warp to the source their Vessel somehow missed the destination and they crashed inside this system.”

“Just like how our Vessel missed its exit despite the core being in perfect health?” Cori asks

“Exactly, it seems this system houses many strange phenomena like the inaccuracy of warping,” Mint answers, smirking slightly as he readies his slice of information “Which led to an experiment on the Cave twin about a negative time interval with warp travel.”

"Unbelievable, there's no way that could be possible." Piper catches on to the content presenting itself

"We all saw it before our very eyes," Citra steps closer invading the circle "With enough power put into the system an object can exit a singularity pair before it enters with a noticeable backwards delay. They even started planning to make that interval longer to utilise it."

"No doubt in search of The Eye." Piper steals the thought.

  


"So they never found it?" Moracia asks

"Apparently not," Mint strokes the length of his moustache as he recounts his expedition "On the Cave twin they had a debate about using a sun station as a powersource for an 'Ash Twin project', and using the Tower Twin to link all the key locations together via interplanetary warps."

"That must be why the Forge seemed so heavily used," Tarra adds "They must have been planning to link every planet together in the system. I wonder how far they got?"

"Potentially quite far by the looks of it," Rosmar speaks up from her station "I've found evidence of Nomain constructions on almost every planet; I even checked for a sun station, it's in a low orbit of the system's star."

"They must have been so close, how could they not have found The Eye?" Moracia asks the room

"Something must have physically prevented them from finishing the project, it seems unlikely that they would get so far and not be able to fix any logical problems." Mint tries to answer “From what we could tell of the Sunless City it seemed like the clan died out suddenly.”

“I got that feeling too,” Piper adds “The remains in the Hanging City seemed like they were frozen during their everyday life.”

"Did you find any strange readings in the City? From something invisible and highly reactive?" Tarra asks, mint nods "We found a large pocket of it too, it prevented us from seeing most of the City on Terrene Geode." Tarra pulls out a container from her side and holds it up to the light “I picked up one of the crystal formations close to the matter to see if we could examine it, given it is lethal we should try to find out exactly what it is.”

Tarra passes the sample to the other team, Citra holds it up to the light as they try to get a better look at its structure.

  


"Of all the clans out there and we're the one to hear their beacons." Mint thinks aloud as the two scientists start their own discussion. Piper steps next to him, taking his hand and following his gaze out of the Vessels great window.

"I know exactly how you feel," she says squeezing his hand slightly "It's not a feeling I can put into exact words; We could never even dream about our unsuspecting selves stumbling into something like this."

"You're harmonious with me as always Piper. There's so many secrets hiding here, we can't possibly find them all."

"Do you think we should contact another clan?"

"I don't know, would they believe us? I can hardly believe it myself."

"One measure at a time darling." Piper turns to him and tries to give their leader a soft reassuring smile.

Mint takes a steady breath "We must get our findings organised. Piper, Moracia, please gather everyone together. Everyone should hear about this."

They both turn away and head into the Vessel as Mint and a few of the other crew members clear out a space for the rest of their small clan to gather.


	11. Second Contact & Nomai Mines

“Look, the ship. They've fixed it.” Caps points across the village as he shifts his trinoculars across to the tower.

“Fixed? That thing looks like it's in just as bad condition as it was before.” She glaces up from her own notes. The ship rested on top of the platform precariously balanced on three skinny legs and wobbling gently in the slight wind blowing overtop the crater. "They're just throwing themselves into space and seeing if it works."

"I know, it's amazing isn't it."

She ignores him and returns her attention back to her formal note taking on the makeshift desk of her helmet. At their second stop Caps made the passing comment about the oxygen rich atmosphere almost trying not to ask for permission to take off his helmet and by the third he had actually managed to convince her to let him. Of course she had taken her own helmet off too, a prolonged observation session might as well be a comfortable one. The last vantage point was not necessary (As was the second, the task could have been done far more efficiently if they had traveled around the crater in larger increments.) The view only let them see the last few buildings tucked away into the corners of the stone walls, but hopefully a prolonged observation session would be enough to appease Caps and his enthusiasm for the Haveners for a while.

Prika tuts.

“He's got me using that name now too.” She silently scolds herself while glancing over at him, he was laying poised with his trinoculars with a laser focus on the inhabitants.

The campfire circle had long dispersed and the Haveners were back to their normal routines, returning to whatever jobs they were most likely doing before their astronaut crashed down. The Village was full of life despite its seemingly small population. Caps had practically tagged all of them, pinning them down to some sort of role and even managing to track down one or two other potential astronauts. A fisher hung round the pool at the base of one of the waterfalls, a sommelier returned to their barrels, and a luther returned to tuning their instruments. Children played in, on and around the geysers. A woodcutter seemed to be the only one who went against the pattern by actually leaving the crater, Fortunately they appeared to be heading Northwards and away from their landing site.

  


The last few Caps followed closely, The pilot and what could be assumed to be the rest of the space program. The few of them had made their own personal gathering after the rest of the Haveners broke off, presumably to talk about space mission stuff. They stayed like that for a while before slowly heading around the village paths towards the higher levels. The group paused before splitting. One half went into the same cave as the miners from much earlier, and the other continued to the large circular building they’d seen on their arrival to the Village crater. “That must be their Headquarters.” He deduced, leaning closer and staring a hole into the fabric dome covering the building's top. What could they be doing inside? Maybe they were setting up for their next flight and plotting a route to whichever planet they would be visiting next or maybe they were working on upgrades; Perhaps adjusting the mixture for rocket fuel or trying to make the scrappy ship more aerodynamic.

The roof shudders slightly interrupting his train of thought. One of the segments begins to fold on itself, flipping open by a simple series of hinges and pulleys.

“Prika, They've got a Telescope!”

The Large barrel pushes out of the open section of roof, stretching out into the darkening sky.

“That's not good, they'll definitely see the Vessel.” She quickly starts on a message to the Command Centre “We'd better return to our Ship too, I'm sure we've been here long enough.”

"As disappointing as it is, I agree." Caps collects his equipment and clips them back to their holster "I'd love to see what kind of technology they have in their observatory but I'm sure everyone else will be ecstatic to hear the rest of our findings."

Prika mutters an agreement and starts tidying her own equipment while they wait for the Vessel to respond.

  


[ **MINT** : Prika, Caps; We are investigating this clan's search for ' _The Eye of The Universe_ '. East of the Settlement Crater is a _Nomai Mine_. Please make your way to it and record any useful information you can find. We will move the vessel to _Gale Giant_ (This system's largest planet) to disguise ourselves and investigate the structure in orbit there. Please message us from your shuttle if you would like further explanation. ]

  


“Looks like you get to stay here a little longer.” She glances up at Caps' wide eyed beaming face “On the planet I mean, not by the Village. We've got a Mine to investigate.” She quickly adds watching his face curl into a slight frown.

“I admit that was too good of an opportunity, I should have expected you to take it,” He sarcastically retorts “Which way to the Mine?”

“Mint said East,” She pauses to figure out her bearings and gestures across the landscape “So from here that should be that way.”

“Do you think we should check on our shuttle too? Just in case any of the other Haveners are near the landing site.”

“That is a good idea but I know you're going to be disappointed if they aren't.”

  


* * *

  


Prika shuffles around their gear inside their shuttle, storing away their observation notes and swapping over to some more potentially useful equipment in between bouncing back a conversation with the main ship. Their little shuttle seemed safe enough tucked away in the trees but a makeshift cover of a few fallen branches should help ensure it's kept out of sight from any other potential crater leavers, not that any of the Haveners seemed like they wanted to leave any other way except up to space.

“Does Mint have any other information about this Mine or is that entirely our job?” Caps asks shoving the more bulky parts of his suit into his seat.

“Supposedly, this clan used to be Escall's. They set up some kind of Project and the Mine here is part of it.”

“I assume the 'used' in that sentence means they've unfortunatly passed away?”

“Correct, but luckily for you it doesn't seem to be your favourite new friends fault.”

“Poor Escall, I'm sure their clan would have loved to meet them too.” Caps pauses as he adjusts his gear “Does that name sound familiar to you?”

“I remember some kind of myth that they disappeared. They apparently managed to warp past the edge of the universe. It’s probably just someone named after it.”

“Or maybe it could be the same Escall?” Caps starts to lead the way to the Mine, following a mental path on their initial map towards some kind of mountain that was partially cut off from the aerial picture.

“You don't believe every story you're told do you? It's the first and last time a Vessel disappeared, very convenient that the myth covers its own weak spot like that don't you think?”

Caps shrugs

“Besides, after so long they would have been able to return at some point.“ Prika adds on to her point ”There's not really any reason for a Clan to decide to make a permanent residence anywhere.”

“True enough, I suppose.” Caps unenthusiastically agrees, immediately pushing Prika's logic aside and eyeing the Mountain spewing a column of mist into the air across the horizon “Not too much further from here, looks like those arches across the side mark the entrance.”

“They must have used the existing cavity inside as a start to their mine,” Prika theorises “Maybe they were looking for a specific mineral deep below the planets surface?”

  


The two of them approached the Mine from its entrance. A small structure laid in front of the three massive and wide stone archways. The gated path carved through the dirt, creating a smooth slope into a wooded crater set next to the colossal geyser.

“What do you think this building is?” Caps follows the circular marking stones around the spiral. Some kind of computer sits spinning its data rings occasionally as it idles.

“I'm not sure, most likely some kind of landing area.” Prika skims the bridges leading into the side of the mountain “Either way, it's not the Mine so it's not what we're here to see.”

She waves him to the sunken path and they both head into the crater. The partially broken bridge pair guides them over the grassy field below and towards a large opening in the side of the rocky cliff half hidden behind a waterfall. A quick hop to the other bridge to avoid getting soaked lets them enter into the mountain. Through the thick stone wall lies a large circular platform suspended high over the warm water below. At one end sits a thick stone door, marked as mine 2b.

  


Prika triggers the vision-controller and watches the door slide smoothly open, letting a few beams of the weakening daylight shine into the first few feet of the cave. The mouth opens wider as it continues into the darkness with a few dim lamps dotted against the walls struggling to provide the much needed light. She takes the first steps into the thick darkness followed closely by her apprentice. The air inside is heavy with a hot mixture of moisture and dust being constantly kicked around into a dense fog that makes it almost as hard to breath as it is to see. Flickers of blue and gold emerge from the depths as they approach some kind of overlook to the mine and their eyes strain to get accustomed to the murky conditions.

“This place is huge,” Caps comments feeling for the railing in front of him “How are we going to find anything here?”

“They must have a command post.” She answers peering over the edge to what appears to be a large gravity lift glowing softly in the centre of the cavern, she follows its square rings upwards into the darkness to a hidden top floor “Hopefully this place is easier to navigate than it looks.”

“What do you think they were looking for?” Caps asks loudly into the cave hearing for his voice echoing as well as the various other ambience to make a guess at the sheer size of the operation. Prika turns her attention back down to look into the depths of the mine. A small sparkle catches her attention, a flash of ore? Or just a reflection on the water?

“I'm not sure, it's far too dark to make anything out.” She says after a moment of squinting.

“It looks like there's a path that goes down,” Caps says leaning over the balcony slightly “Maybe we should head down an- GAH!”

“Caps!” Prika lunges out to grab him “You idiot!”

“It's not what you think.” He replies slightly out of breath “I was following the rail and I felt something touch my hand.” He gingerly runs his fingers back across the railing holding his breath and feeling for the strange lump somewhere on it's length. His sensitive fingertips brush against a rough shape on the smooth metal rail, he forces his eyes to focus, three distinct bumps form in the darkness connected at the back and moving inward towards the ground.

Caps recoils again, “It's a skeleton!” he shudders and shakes his hand “There's a whole skeleton, oh hell. Can we get to searching already, I'd really rather not be standing next to them for too long.”

Prika tries not to seem too amused by his anguish “It looks like there's a path this way.” she says, turning him around to face the few lights lining upward on the wall.

“Oh good, let's go.” Caps mumbles as he takes the lead to quickly distance himself from his first and only skeleton friend.


	12. Gale's Satellite

“I've synched our Vessel to Gale Giant,” Cori says monitoring the readings from their station “We should remain on the dark side of the planet as it orbits the system”

“Excellent, that should ensure we stay unseen” Mint thanks him from the window as he looks across the planet in front of them, almost hypnotised by the swirling green of the impenetrable layer of thick clouds. The next step on their investigation was orbiting around the windy giant. A long satellite, asymmetrical in design, with three large glass modules on one end and a long twisted barrel pointing across the equator of the planet. Nestled inside the base of the barrel lay some kind of probe described by Thymus as being lined with copper detailing, glowing softly with blue lights and housing some kind of advanced instrument at it's tip. Mint watches silently as the structure disappears behind the planet's neon blue halo of light.

  


“Mint, an update.” Sage speaks down from the upper deck “I've completed my analysis of the planet and I've been able to produce a more detailed report” she quickly heads down and makes her way beside the leader to show him the portable screen of her findings.

“The planet consists almost entirely of ocean. There are a few islands, most of which have some kind structure built on them. An investigation of those islands may be useful, but I would advise against it due to intense conditions on the planet"

She cycles through various pages of data

"High gravity, constant heavy rainfall, strong winds and even many powerful tornadoes. The islands also appear to be composed of a surprisingly buoyant stone letting them sail across the ocean currents with surprising speed. In addition to that the composition of the islands and the strong weather leads to a rather extraordinary natural phenomenon."

She lowers the screen and looks out to the green giant in front of them.

"We should be able to see it for ourselves from here at any moment now."

She points to one of the swirling spots on the green mass, a common sign of a storm underneath, the clouds part as something shoots out of the atmosphere. Thymus is quick on his reactions and pulls out his scope. He focuses on the shape, making it out to be a rocky island. The island flies surprisingly high above the planet before the giant's gravity grabs hold of it again and yanks it back down below the clouds.

  


“Thank you Sage,” Mint takes the screen from her, carefully considering the new information given to him. A complete investigation of the planet and all its structures would greatly benefit in helping gather the pieces left by the previous clan but on the other side, considering his and his wife's expeditions, he was hesitant to subject anyone to another potentially dangerous scouting mission. Even if he had taken the precaution of requesting a report beforehand that didn’t necessarily prepare them for invisible matter, planetary sand tides, hollow planets and timeless signals. This star system seemed like a magnet for improbable (and dangerous) wonders.

“We shall only investigate the satellite for the time being, should a trip to the Giant's islands become necessary then we will plan for the planet's conditions and send the guided shuttle.”

Mint turns to his crew and scans across the faces, figuring out the best combination for yet another scouting team. The moving target and small-ish landing pad would make for a tricky flight, one of the more skilled pilots would be necessary there. Excluding himself (He'd rather stay aboard the vessel to be able to oversee everyone for the moment) that left Bay, equally skilled and more than likely able to land on target; and Cori, if they could navigate the Vessel they'll easily be able to navigate a shuttle. Citra and Tarra should be on that team too, the two scientists had been chatting up a storm since they'd got back and both seemed eager to learn more about this mysterious Eye. If this satellite was indeed part of that puzzle at all, there seemed to be far too many loose ends to create a working theory. Nevertheless, the more knowledge they could find the better and even if they couldn't solve it themselves there are plenty of other clans out there who could better put the pieces together. Mint shakes his head and gets his thoughts back to the satellite investigation, he strokes his moustache considering who else to add to the team. Maybe he should keep the team small, there didn't seem to be a lot to investigate after all. The scientists and the navigator seemed like more than enough to handle the satellite.


	13. The Probe

Cori sat hunched over the controls, leaning as much as he could to see the edge of the Giant from their shuttle sat in the recessed launch bay. The twisted ends of the barrel peek over the horizon and he gets ready to launch at exactly the right moment. He silently counts down and launches; sending the shuttle out diagonally, quickly closing the gap and lining up with its predicted position. A quick adjustment at the controls and the ship maneuvers into landing orientation. Cori makes a few minor adjustments before the shuttle and the satellite make contact, lining up almost perfectly entrance to entrance.

"Expertly done Cori," Citra says, leaning on his staff to take a look out the shuttles back window "I can't wait to take a look around this place."

“Just give me one moment.” Cori replies as he checks the stability levels and ensures they are firmly locked onto the side of the satellite. Satisfied with the landing he turns to give a thumbs up for the team to open the door.

“Will you be coming with us?” Tarra asks as she seals her helmet to her suit.

“I shall stay here, just to ensure that the shuttle stays put,” Cori says as he faces his controls again “I wouldn't want to leave us stranded in case an island manages to knock the shuttle off.”

“Okay, let us know if there are any problems. We should be back as soon as possible.” Citra says as he leads out the door followed closely by Tarra.

The landing pad funneled downwards in a small space walk to an airlock pod at the entrance of the satellite. The two have just enough room to fit inside the airlock as Citra slides the control around its socket and the wall rotates around them, groaning slightly as the stone grinds against the air tight seals. They drift out of the entrance into a much more spacious room, three more round doorways sit evenly spaced around the centre of the room and at the end a large patterned window spans the wall. Citra and Tarra drift over to take a better look outside; The twisting barrel reaches out towards the depths of space with three spirals of cloudy purple domed crystals and a few dim lights lining the entire length.

At the base of the barrel, held in place by three flimsy looking arms, sits the probe. It's soft blue glow gives just enough light to illuminate itself in its entirety. Against two of the sides sits the familiar complex symbol of The Eye of The Universe embossed in copper plating.

“This must be a probe to search for The Eye,” Tarra says, jabbing at the glass to show Citra the symbol “This satellite is some sort of Deep space probe cannon.”

“That must mean The Eye is somewhere within range of this system,” Citra looks across the barrel again trying to estimate its launch distance ”But would they really be able to find it with just this probe?”

Tarra hums in thought as she takes another look at the three numbered doorways

[ 1 - Control Module | 2 - Launch Module | 3 - Probe tracking Module ]

“We should head to the Control centre,” She points to the marked doorway “That should give us the best idea of how this Deep space probe would have worked.”

Another airlock separates the module from the central entryway. Tarra recognises the tiled design of the floor as the same gravity tile used in the Hanging City and lands on it with a soft clack of her boots on the surface. Citra follows less gracefully behind. The clear glass wall wrapped around the module floods the control centre with light, letting them see the entirety of the surprisingly spacious module. Above them appeared to be the communication area. A few benches and potted trees decorated the ceiling as well as a projection pool along with its matching board, the tuned projection stones sit nearby most likely with some archived conversations still in their memory. It probably wasn't worth picking through the Cannon crews discussions, most likely they would have just been discussing the construction and calibration or the Probe. The floor they stood on housed the mechanical brains of the Control module, which would provide a much better resource for picking apart the inner workings of the Cannon and Probe. Three circular computers idled silently on the floor, evenly spaced around what must have been their shared display given the thick cable that led from each one into the solidified coppery pool in the middle of the floor.

“Let's take a look at what this thing has to tell us.” Citra says shifting the power toggle, the glassy orb slides smoothly around the cage and he drops it into the first receptacle. The computer unit whirs to life, groaning loudly after decades of disuse, once properly awake the unit sends a pulse of electricity down into the pool making the contents temporarily liquify as a hologram of two figures rises to the centre of the room. The computer hums again as its rings rise out of the terminal.

[ Connection to Ash Twin Project stable. _Awaiting order to launch_. |  
| Cannon locked in orbital alignment. ]

“This must be the Ash Twin Project.” Tarra points to the second figure, a strange disc-like shape floating beside a figure of the Deep space cannon.

“It's a little hard to make out,” Citra stretches out his neck to try and see the details of the shape better, the simplified representation appeared to be some kind of rough and jagged circular structure with a smooth sphere at it's centre “I don't think I've seen anything like that? At least not in the Sunless City.”

“All we found about the Ash Twin Project at The Hanging City was that it required several warp cores, We never really saw anything of it.”

“Let's have a look at the next unit.” Citra says shrugging and shifting the glass orb to the next receptacle waking the next computer. The two figures fall back into the copper pool and a closeup of the Cannon takes their place.

[ NO LOG TO DISPLAY: _Awaiting launch request_. ]

“Not very useful for us, move on to the next one.” Tarra says gesturing at Citra.

[ ORBITAL PROBE CANNON STATUS REPORT: No anomalous activity to report. All systems functional... |  
| Probe Tracking Module connection stable. |  
| Awaiting orders, Unnecessary processes in hibernation. ]

“This one seems like a good contender for finding out how this Deep space probe works,” Citra says stooping over the unit. He presses the rings, sending them back down out of position “Hopefully these computers are still compatible with our newer technology.” He shifts the staff in his hands, folding down the keypad and sliding out a small screen, then presses the end to the centre of the unit. Pulses of blue flash up from the circular unit following the silver detailing across Citra's staff to the screen at the top. The screen flashes with miscellaneous characters as the staff tries to churn through the computer's data, an interface builds itself on the screen as the process finalises and after a few moments Citra is met with a terminal.

“Looks like it's working,” He gestures for Tarra to join him and begins typing on the small keys “It's a little botched but it should allow us to read through the data and make simple requests.”

“That'll be more than enough for us to work with.” Tarra thinks for a moment “See if you can ask it to perform a maintenance check, that should give us a list of everything important to the Deep space probes function.”

He nods and begins tapping out the request. He sends it down and gives the computer a few minutes to think, the new report is sent to his screen and he scrolls though it slowly as they both read through the various tested components and their specifications. The list seems typical for the cannon; first in the list are the safety and diagnostics features, followed by the various computing components, and then a breakdown of specific cannon components.

“Seems like they were hoping to launch the Probe pretty far,” Tarra comments as Citra scrolled through the long sublist of gravity controllers “All these propulsion modules are set to produce an almost ridiculous amount of force.”

“And only once as well.” Citra adds mentally tallying the figures into a rough sum “There's no way the cannon could withstand that kind of power.”

“Is that a launch randomiser?” Tarra points out one of the items.

Citra gives a confused frown “For them to provide the cannon with a whole component just to pick random direction must mean they had absolutely no idea where to launch the Probe.” He flicks through the list quickly skimming the components from top to bottom “There isn't any kind of recall or return functionality, they were planning to blindly launch into space.”

Tarra clasps her helmet in her hand “This Deep space probe makes even less sense now we're here.”

I don't get it either,” Citra shakes his head as he takes another look through the list "There's so many checks to make sure the system works perfectly, but by these conditions that means they couldn't possibly be trying to find The Eye, the probability of even firing in its general direction is astronomically low."

There is a moment of silent confusion shared between the two of them.

"Woah!" Citra tilts the screen towards Tarra and points to two of the lines "There's no way that's correct."

The report lists two entries for data transfer, one between the probe and the cannon and another between the cannon and the Ash Twin Project, both of them have a stable connection running at-

"Four hundred and seventy eight thousand percent capacity?” She slowly reads the number aloud trying to convince herself it was real "That's the sort of throughput I'd expect for tens of thousands of launches, not for a probe that could only fire once."

There is another beat of confused silence as something slides into place in her mind, a vague connection but a connection nonetheless. "You don't think this is what the time travel experiment was for do you?"

Citra gasps, forming the same picture in his head "They could send out the probe during a loop!" He says excitedly "Scanning the entire range of the cannon in one giant sweep!" he adds gesturing widely. “Absolute genius!”

“If the cannon still works then we only need to activate it.” Tarra proposes, “We can use it to finish the clan’s search for them."

“The Deep space probe might work but the time loop will be a problem, In the high energy lab it took the same amount of power as the entire city to create the effect for only a few seconds.” He explains “There were conversations about extending the interval to 22 minutes, as well as building a Sun station to generate that astronomical amount of power.”

“So if the Sun station, which they've already managed to build, was for the time loop they would have already found The Eye.” Tarra follows his thought

“Exactly, I can't be sure why it didn't work but I'm hesitant to say we can simply turn this cannon on. We still don't know how they were trying to find The Eye of The Universe”

Tarra thinks carefully for a moment “We should send Mint our findings in this Module for now, That way he can send a team for the Sun station if he decides that's how we should finish the search. Then we will head to the Probe tracking module to see if we can find the specifics of the search”

Citra nods as he disconnects his staff from the computer unit and begins quickly typing out the message for the Vessel.

* * *

The Probe Tracking Module looks almost the same as the Control module, only varying in the placement of furniture on the communication side. Citra and Tarra immediately start switching through the computer units. The hologram shows a real time model of the Deep space cannon orbiting Gale Giant.

[ Receiving data from probe 1 |  
| _No trajectory selected, No path to visualise_. ]

The model remains the same as Tarra changes to the next unit.

[ Retrieving previous launch data from Ash Twin |  
| Total number of probes launched: **0** |  
| No matches to known criteria for The Eye of the Universe found ]

“At the least that confirms that the time loop was for the Deep space probe.” Tarra says “See if you can access that criteria from this unit.”

Citra preps the unit and taps his staff to it “If it's not stored on the Probe itself we should be able to connect through to the 'Ash Twin' from here as well.” he says while he waits for his screen to change. The terminal loads up slightly quicker than before and Citra begins tapping out the request, the unit automatically patches him through to the Ash Twin Project’s huge database and starts writing up the various properties the probe data is to be compared to.

“This is fascinating, The sheer scale of this Project on it's own is impressive.” He says poking around inside the Ash Twin’s supercomputer as the criteria report generates “The lengths they went to for this signal- It's sad that they never got a chance to investigate it for themselves.”

The screen gives a flash letting them know the probe’s report is ready, Citra types at the keypad again and brings it into view on his screen. The search criteria consists of a mashup of several little scraps of data, a few sample images of rock texture, pattern and formations; a spectrum of quantum fluctuation signals; an elemental composition (more than likely to pair with the rock samples); and some kind of weather pattern looking for strong winds. None of the items seemed to be very useful individually and together they hardly formed a cohesive idea of what The Eye would even look like.

"Maybe we can use this data in a different way to complete the search," Citra says as he makes a copy and saves it onto his staff's internal memory. "I'll bring this back for Mint so we can figure that out."

Tarra takes another look around the module, planning their next possible step “I think we've about found everything useful,” she says half shrugging “We should still take a look at the Launch module but I don't think we'll find anything we don't already know.”

Citra hums to agree as he finishes saving the probe data and disconnects from the unit.


	14. Haven’s Quarry

The mine seemed a lot less smaller than it had first appeared, Caps notes as he took another look around the damp walls, perhaps his eyes had finally adjusted and he could actually see properly. From the walkway at the top of the mine he'd been able to reach the gravity beam that stood in the centre of the operation and from there he could see the cave walls surrounding them. The flooded lower levels were full of holes, big holes that were wide and deep dug into the large pockets of mineral that seemed to sparkle in the darkness making it look like the mine led directly into space. Several buckets lined the command post that were full of the same raw mineral of which Caps grabbed a palm sized chunk for further examination (and because he liked how shiny it was, but Prika more than likely wouldn't let him have it for that alone).

  


Caps steps away from the railing and heads back over to Prika at the other side of the post, she stood in front of a board reading the contents of a scroll while holding a projection stone with some kind of symbol glowing on one side.

“Find anything useful?” He asks, shuffling beside her and taking a look at the text for himself

“Plenty more than you,” She gives him a jab “I can't believe you're scared of just a few bones.”

Caps harrumphs “It's a perfectly normal reaction.”

“True, but you didn't even flinch walking past the one sitting next to the bridge you just crossed twice now.” She points to the remains of a Nomai tucked by the corner of the platform, laughing as Caps stumbles backwards slightly.

“On another note,” she continues, gesturing back to the conversation she was reading “Take a look at this, All this ore was to create a dense shell around the central chamber of an 'Ash Twin Project' to completely seal it off, with not even a single hairline crack.”

“Like a protective case around the project?”

“More than likely.” She shows him the projection stone “Here come take a look at this too.” She leads further around the command post to a communication hub. Caps keeps an eye and a half on another skeleton sitting by one of the chairs as they step down into the projection pool.

“This projection stone, as far as I know, is the one for dialing into the Ash Twin Project” Prika flashes the symbol on the stone at him again before pressing it down into the slot of the pedestal. The stone pillars twist to touch each other and a coppery liquid trickles out collecting at their feet. Their vision shifts, taking on an orange tinge as the room fades away from around them and is replaced with another.

Caps freezes in place. The room fills with a spinning vortex of stars and staring directly at him is a taller Nomai with blue glowing eyes, he clears his throat and gives a sheepish “P-prika?”

“They've mounted several masks to the wall here,” Prika replies, stifling another laugh “I can't tell why that one seems to be receiving power. It's far too dark to see anything.”

“Was this just another opportunity to mess with me?” Caps looks around at the other masks fixed in an evenly spaced circle around them.

“You can see the thick shell from the recipient pool,” she dodges the question “It's got the same unique luster as the ore here, I'm sure we'll be able to find this place from the outside if the shell is made completely out of this mineral.”

  


Prika pulls the projection stone out of its slot, restoring their vision to the Mine “That seems to be everything here to report back with.” She turns the stone around in her hands, looking at the symbol on it from all angles “We'll bring this stone too, Maybe the other investigation teams will recognise the symbol or the projection area.”

“Right, so in other words we're leaving the creepy mine now.” Caps says, quickly starting to make his way back to the entrance.

They step out of the fog of dust and steam back into the clear air of the surface, the slight chill of the night providing a quick relief from the heat that had collected inside the Mine. Caps gladly seals the door behind them and they both head across the bridge out of the crater. Fireflies help lead the way back and after returning the foliage cover to the forest floor they shuffle back into their seats. Prika flicks the controls warping back to the shuttle’s dock aboard the Vessel.

  


* * *

  


“Ah Prika. You're back,” Mint greets her as she returns to the bridge “With perfect timing too, Tarra and Citra have not long returned themselves. I assume your own investigations went well too?”

“Caps has returned to his room to compile his notes on the planet’s residents, or 'Haveners' as he's decided to name them, I'm sure he would be glad to explain the details but of what we observed they only seem to be interested in planet hopping.” She explains “As for the mine you asked us to look into, it seemed to be a very focused operation. They were primarily gathering a large amount of ore in order to seal away the central chamber of an 'Ash Twin Project' with a thick protective shell.”

Prika retrieves out the projection stone from her side “I didn't manage to find anything that could give me any idea where the Ash Twin Project is but this stone is used to dial into what I can only assume to be the sealed off room.” She tilts it to show Mint the symbol on its face “If you recognise the symbol on it that could be a good lead to finding it.”

“Thank you Prika.” Mint says, taking the stone from her “Finding this 'Ash Twin Project' will be our next step.”

“I recognise that symbol.” Saffron speaks up from her side of the room. She joins them and takes a closer look at the stone “This symbol was used on some kind of orrery I found while we was waiting for the sand to drain away Mint: This was used for the sibling planets”

“Ah, so this must represent the Tower Twin.” he taps the complete orange circle “Their representation is of it completely covered in sand.”

“You'd expect them to focus on the Towers,” Citra comments, taking the stone and looking for himself “Or maybe more of those Planet-sized Solar panels than just the tops peeking out”

  


“Planet-sized did you say?” Tarra asks while gesturing to take a look too. She scowls at the design and traces it in a trance of deep thought.

“Is something the matter?” Mint prompts for the unusually quiet scientist to say something

“I think this may be wrong, but I think I might have an idea how the Eye search might have worked. I suspected it but the need for a protective shell and planet sized solar collectors confirms it.” She explains “We know the Probe was supposed to fire randomly until it found the Eye utilising a time loop, but to reach out far enough the interval had to be long. That would require vastly more energy, so the solar panels on the Tower Twin must link to the warp core responsible for that time interval.”

“That sounds plausible to me,” Citra says, considering her theory “but why would that be concerning?”

“They would need an immense amount of power. A simple solar array won't be able to produce that.” Tarra continues “There's only one way to get massive amounts of energy from a star.”

“You don't mean...” Mint shudders slightly

“They were so determined to find The Eye that they were willing to risk destroying themselves and everything in this system.” Tarra finished his thought “The Sun Station must be to induce a supernova.”

A silence spreads itself through the command center. Everyone began thinking of the implications of what Tarra had just said. The same questions being asked by different people. What would have happened if the project didn't work? What would have happened if it did? Would such a feat even be possible? It seemed even more painful now that this clan never found The Eye if this was how much risk they were willingly putting themselves under.

  


“Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there was no risk or maybe they had a method we don't know.” Tarra says to usher back the Vessel’s ambience.

“We will continue the search, but we won't activate the Ash Twin Project.” Mint calmly addresses the room “I'm not doubting our previous clans method but I'm not willing to share that same risk, especially with another race present in the system.”

“What are we to do instead?” Prika asks,

“There must be another way we can find The Eye of The Universe.” He replies, pacing back and forth as he strokes his moustache.

“Thanks to the Deep space probe we know what they were looking for to identify The Eye.” Citra adds “We can use that as a base for our own method.”

“Right,” Mint says “If we use that data we just have to figure out a way to scan for The Eye.”

“What about our Vessel?” Saffron suggests “It already has the capability to scan for signals, could we adapt that function?”

“That might work. The Communication antenne can send and receive signals across vast distances, that would give us the range we would need.” Rosmar chimes in “If we can modify it to scan physically we could use it as something like a sonar.”

“Is such a modification possible?” Mint asks his scientists

“Theoretically...” Tarra says confidently “We will need to modify our whole communications array to be able to process an altered version of The Eye's dataset, but we would be able to send out a hybrid-signal that will react to The Eye and echo back a location to us.”

“But to produce that hybrid-signal and be able to send it across the whole system we'd need a large burst of power,” Rosmar advises “We might be able to produce enough energy but the strain that would put our generators under could overload them if we're not careful.”

  


Mint thinks over their proposition, carefully weighing up the viability of this new method. It seemed like it could work, but putting their Vessel under too much pressure could have any number of side effects including the potential to leave them completely stranded with an irreparable Vessel.

“What about the Ash Twin Project? Could the solar arrays be used to help provide some of the excess power we'd need?” He suggests

“That could work, if the Ash Twin Project can generate most of the energy we need we would be able to send multiple scans and get more accuracy.” Tarra replies “We'd just need to create a link of some kind, maybe through the advanced warp core we know is part of the project.”

“Excellent! Let's find the Ash Twin Project.” Mint commands “We'll need to move out from Gale Giant to be able reach the binary twins, Cori if you would kindly plot our path.”

Cori nods and turns back to his station.

“Tarra, you get started on our Vessel’s modifications. Piper, you'll head to the Tower Twin and see if you can access the Project.” Mint continues directing “Gather as many hands as you two might need.”


	15. Tower Twin's Towers

Sun light harshly drenched the Vessel. Their new parking space brought them close to the system's star, not only for more direct access to the Twins but being near to the centre of the system would give them a more even coverage for when they were to scan for The Eye. Hopefully the light pollution would help keep them out of sight from Wooden Haven too but just in case the Vessel was synched to an orbit of the star that would keep them on the opposite side.

Mint watched the sunburnt planets, holding an arm across the side of his face to shield his eyes. The Tower Twin was completely buried, with only the very ends of the Solar towers peeking out of the bleached sand, for now all that could be done was to wait for the sand to transfer between the Twins.

“I hope all this direct light isn't too bright for Tarra,” Citra says as he joins Mint by the window “She must be using the direct maintenance access on the outside of the Vessel for her modifications.”

“Knowing her I'm sure she's more than happy to see it as a challenge to overcome. How are you getting along chipping away at that dataset?”

“I'll have to wait for the exact specifications to make the hybrid-signal but in the meantime I've been picking through everything.” He replies “It's actually a lot more specific than it seemed. Here, take a look at these images for example. These stone formations seem almost as big as a Nomai but they don't seem to appear anywhere in the system, even Thymus did a quick visual scan of the surface of these planets, But I have no idea where they got these pictures.”

“And this Quantum fluctuation map, normally a signal like this would be for small atomic particles but they've seemed to have mapped it to something the size of a small moon. Can something that size even exist in a quantum state?”

Mint takes the staff from him to get a better look for himself “We'll just have to see if it works. If we need to we can always try to work backwards later and figure out how they obtained this dataset."

  


* * *

  


The sand tides shift around the planet, steadily bulging out the equator in a series of dunes that crawl across the surface while the winds or the Sibling planet passing overhead (or perhaps even a culmination of the two) pluck at the particularly tall hills and stretch them upwards. The process starts slowly, with the sand being sloshed around the planet like water reaching higher and higher with each pass until one of the waves breaks through the atmosphere. The sand funnels itself across the void between the two planets, stretching out to it's rocky Sibling and then like magic the thin column begins ripping up more and more dust until it becomes a roaring river dumping thousands of tonnes of sand into the Canyon.

“Oh! It's starting.” Mint springs up from his seat, relieved that the wait was over. Piper joins him by the window. “We should start to see the towers soon.” He explains to her as they watch for the rest of the structures to start peaking out.

A large platform emerges from the sand first, an almost solid looking stone circle with a geometric design of thick copper detailing and a big glass window. Mint points Piper to it “See that tower emerging now. If I'm remembering the Blueprints I found correctly that one should lead to the Sun station.” The sand slips away from the edges revealing a series of perfectly cut and spaced triangles around the tower's perimeter “See how it's designed to look like a shining star? All the towers reflect their destination, the Siblings should have parallel towers.”

“Right” Piper nods “I'll head down to the Shuttle dock and land as soon as the sand has cleared” She steps away from the window to leave, waving up at Sage to follow her before they both head into the ship.

  


* * *

  


“Thank you for flying us again Bay.” Piper says as she leads into their shuttle (coincidentally the same one that had taken them to Terrene Geode.)

"Of course," he replies giving a grin "I'm glad to get another chance to put my skills to use in these shuttles."

They take their seats and wait for the last of the sand to slip away from their destination.

“It doesn't look like there will be much space to land.” He notes, scanning the rock formations that made up the planet's equator “but all of the towers are connected so if I can get you down by either end you should be able to get up to the road that wraps around the planet.”

“Right,” Sage says, “and from there we'll just make our way to the parallel towers.”

The planets twist in front of them and Bay launches off the shuttle, soaring across the distance as the planet spins towards them. A quick adjustment or two and they start sailing downward towards the core, the shuttle lands almost wedged between the craggy black rocks and the solar tower’s pulsing cables.

They step out of the shuttle onto the sparkling stone and take another look around at the planet from ground level, the sheer scale of everything towering over them is almost dizzying.

Sage takes a step back to see the entire length of the solar tower’s arms and trying to estimate its size, the massive hexagonal panels seemed larger than their shuttle alone. She could almost feel the imaginary heat radiating from the glowing blue surges of power the heavy copper cables carried away into the planet's core.

“They've really done some intense construction on this planet.” Bay crouches down and runs his gloved hand over the thick shell below them. The stone was almost smooth, appearing to have been made in place by compressing thousands of thin layers together “I'd say this planet is more Nomai-crafted than it is natural.”

“It does feel somewhat surreal looking at these towers from down here.” Piper adds while staring up at the closest tower. it reaches upwards curving outward gradually to a wide top, A spiral of metallic detailing curls down and meets with the main roadway halfway down before continuing the rest of the way down the tower. A square doorway sits at the bottom with the instantly recognisable blue rings of a gravity lift inside.

  


“We'll head up through this tower.” Piper waves the group over and climbs up the rugged rock steps. The beam lifts the team up through the centre of the tower and at the top it pushes them to the side carefully dropping them onto the tiled floor. The side of the tower opens out to the wide path that connects across to the barely visible top of the next tower.

“This planet feels even smaller when you're at this level.” Bay comments as he looks down from the edge of the path

“Let's keep moving,” Piper says as she leads the way across the path “I wouldn't want to keep us out in this sun for too long.”

The next tower is more geometric in design. Several triangular sections clump around the top of the triangular body and a series of many steps lead up and through the tall doorway. The window floods the interior with light, shining through the glass warp pad down to the design painted on the floor below. Terrene Geode's Tower, Piper notes as she pauses for a moment to get a better look at the black hole and crystalline crust design of the mural below.

Wooden Haven appeared to be next with a stepped circular design that must represent the massive geyser mountain. This tower housed a pair of rotating doors, potentially to help keep the inside of the tower separated from the harsh outside conditions so that the trees and plants inside could grow.

Finally they made it around the path to the Siblings towers. Two almost identical towers stood either side of the path, connected together by a bridge on their upper level.

“That one must be to the Cave Twin,” Bay says pointing up at the wide split in one of the towers “So this must be the Tower Twin.” he moves his finger down the tower to it's entrance.

The team hesitate for a moment, on the ground just outside of the tower lay the body of a Nomai still dressed in their space suit reaching out as if to crawl into the tower.

“Rest well my friend,” Piper carefully steps around them, “We're going to find The Eye, I promise.” She gives a bow of respect and enters the tower.

“Now, we only have to wait for the Cave twin to pass overhead. The Tower warps are triggered by astrological alignment.” She explains looking out of the scratched window above them.


	16. Third Movement (Con Brio)

[ **TARRA** : Mint, I have finalised the modifications to our Vessel’s antenna, Rosmar should have the ability to use the sonar-signal in conjunction with normal communications. ]

Rosmar reads the message aloud for him.

“Excellent,” Mint replies “Tell her we are just waiting for Piper to return from the Tower Twin.”

“If I may add,” Citra says, interrupting Rosmars typing “Perhaps we should also ask her if we can test the Antennae while we are waiting.”

Mint agrees and Rosmar appends the question to the end of her message, and again reads aloud the response from Tarra.

[ **TARRA** : I agree. I am confident in the Antennae but running some tests will help me determine the specifications for the Hybrid-signal that Citra will need to create. ]

[ **TARRA** : Are there any suggestions for the first test? ]

“I know Caps brought back a sample of the raw ore from the Geyser Mine.” Prika suggests “Since we know it exists on Wooden Haven it could be helpful?”

[ **TARRA** : A physical sample would be _perfect_ to recreate The Eye's dataset and run a test scan. However trying to reach Wooden Haven with in improper Signal could overload the system. ]

“The ore could also be found on the twins, since it was also used to create the Tower Twin’s shell.” Mint rebuts

“But if it was processed too much it might not match the raw sample anymore,” Prika says “If the composition changed, for example if it was made into an alloy, then we can't be sure if the Antenna isn't working or just can't detect it.”

“What about the invisible exotic matter.” Citra suggests “We know there are several pockets of it in the system including on the Cave Twin, that should provide a close enough target when the planets pass by again.”

“That sounds like it'd work, but we couldn’t be able to get a sample of it safely.” Prika answers

“Not the matter itself but Tarra brought a crystal structure she found in the Hanging City,” He replies “If it's all the same then we should be able to scan for the same crystals in the Sunless City.”

[ **TARRA** : That would be _exactly_ what we'd need for an effective test, the Crystal should be in the Lab. Send Citra and I will meet him there. ]

Citra gives a wave before heading off into the Vessel, making his way through the twists and turns of the halls to the science wing.

Citra carefully leaned their staff against the wall as he entered Tarra's lab (technically it was everyone's but she was usually the one spending the most time there and quickly became colloquially associated with it). As usual bits and pieces of various experiments sat in neat piles on the tables and hanging over them a large blueprint was spread out. It seems Tarra had been theorising about such an innovation with Rosmar in the past, no wonder they were so quick to pitch the idea. Citra gives a brief passover of the blueprints before turning to the analyser in the corner of the room and retrieving the exotic crystal from inside. Thankfully in its solidified form the Matter was completely harmless, even to the bare hand. He turned it over a few times investigating its rough faces.

“It definitely seems to be related to the exotic matter,” Tarra says from behind him as she puts away a few tools she'd been using “But I'm not sure if it's a condensed form or some kind of byproduct. Did you have any luck with that Probe data?”

“I've dissected it as much as I can, we should be able to piece it together in any way we could possibly need. We should also be able to recreate a similar dataset using this crystal for our tests.”

“Great work,” Tarra picks up his staff and takes a look for herself “Let's get started right away.”

* * *

[ **CITRA** : Rosmar, we have a first test ready. You should be able to run it for us from your computer. ]

[ **TARRA** : Please can you establish a visual connection between our lab and the bridge so that we can observe from here? ]

One of the screens on the side wall flickers to life, showing a copy of Rosmar's complicated display as a small ring lights up on the floor beside it. The figure of their communications officer forms out of the light.

“How's that?” She asks “Can you see my station correctly?”

“Yes, that should do just fine.” Tarra replies “We've readied the process to read our dataset and send out a pulse from the modified antenna. With just a few simple steps you should be able to bring up the interface we've created.”

“It's not fully complete yet, but it should work” Citra lists off the directions and watches as she inputs them exactly. The screen shifts and changes to display a large box with several indicators beside it.

“Now, what you're seeing here is just the output, when you send out the pulse with the command your screen will display all the reactions sent back to the vessel at their approximate location,” He continues explaining “The screen also shows the quality and status of the system, if there are any problems it should automatically warn you.”

“Right.” Rosmar confirms “So all we need to do now is wait for the Planets to pass close by so I can send the test pulse?”

“Exactly, I'll give you the command now.” Tarra reads it from her notes slowly, making sure to enunciate it clearly

“I can see the twins now,” Rosmar says while looking out the grand window “They should be at their closest point at any moment.”

“Send the pulse when you're ready.” Citra says, stepping closer to his screen eagerly awaiting the results it would show.

[ Sending Pulse at specified parameters |  
| Waiting for Echos… Receiving responses... |  
| Calculating… ]

The computer seems to freeze, churning through whatever data it had just received. The text vanishes from the screen and several hundred dots of light appear on the screen.

“Yes!” They both exclaim

“It must have worked, those must be the crystal formation in the Sunless City.” Citra cheers

“Rosmar, you should be able to move and rotate the map,” Tarra quiets him down, “See if you can take a closer look at the echos. They should look like they're on walls and floors”

She nods and navigates the results, using a few gestures to get a closer look at the densest patch

“That looks like it’s the size of the building by the entrance to the Gravity cannon,” Citra says “Which happened to be blocked by the exotic matter.”

“Perfect! Thank you Rosmar, we'll start working on The Eye's pulse.”

“Happy to help.” Rosmar gives a smile “I'll let you know when Piper has routed the power so we can scan for The Eye.”

She gives a wave and ends the connection by making her image and screen fade away from the lab.

“I can't wait, we'll definitely find The Eye, What do you think it'll look like? What do you think we'll find there? What do you think the rest of the colony will think?” Citra gleefully fires off one question after another.

“I don't know, but calm yourself down.” Tarra holds out her hand to him “We're not finished yet, we've still got to program The Eye's pulse.”


	17. The Central Chamber

The rocky planet crawled across the sky, its shadow slowly creeping along the ruins. They watched through the cracked window above them with bated breath. The tower kicks to life, groaning slightly as its warp core forms its black hole on top of the team. The white hole core spits them out into darkness before a few lights slowly turn on one by one, illuminating the spinning structure they now stood on. The three of them carefully followed the platform, looking around awe stuck at everything wrapped around the inside of the shell. The project was almost untouched by time, as if it had only been mere moments since the decorative masks they passed had been fixed to the wall. Above them the roots of the solar towers converged into a core at the very centre of the planet.

“The Advanced warp core must be inside that casing.” Sage says pointing upwards “If we can manage to get up there we should be able to modify its warp parameters.”

“Right. There must be a control to stop the Project from spinning.” Piper replies

“They must have put everything into this search,” Bay says from beside them where a few clusters of text lined the wall “These different pieces must have taken a long time to complete and then even longer to put together into the finished Project, here listen.”

He reads a few of the key spirals aloud, recapping the timeline of the Ash Twin Projects creation.

[ **YARROW** : Today we finished the excavation of the Ash Twin. Here, in this space we carved, we will craft our most ambitious project yet: the Ash Twin Project, powerful enough to send information back in time. ]

  


[ **YARROW** : Poke just sent the warp core for the final tower to us from the Black Hole Forge. Now Ash Twin can be connected with Giant's Deep, where Cassava is working with Avens to craft the Orbital Probe Cannon, and where Phlox is sculpting the memory statues. ]

  


[ **YARROW** : Our friends on Giant's Deep tested the Orbital Probe Cannon today. Mallow tells me the cannon is doing well, and that Avens advocates for more launch power. If anyone can coax the maximum power from a device, Avens can. ]

  


[ **YARROW** : Phlox and Daz finished the memory statues today, and they are truly remarkable. ]

  


[ **YARROW** : Pye and Idaea have worked hard on the Sun Station, and it at last is complete. If everything goes as planned, this structure will prompt the sun's explosion, which will in turn supply the power the Ash Twin Project requires. ]

“And Tarra was right when she estimated how they planned to search for The Eye.” He reads each arm of the next cluster

[ **YARROW** : We're nearly ready to activate the Ash Twin Project! Here is what will happen: First, the Sun Station will receive the order to fire at the sun, prompting it to explode. ]

[ **YARROW** : Using the energy from the resulting supernova, the Ash Twin Project will send the order for the Orbital Probe Cannon to fire back in time by 22 minutes. ]

[ **YARROW** : Exactly 22 minutes after these orders are received, the Sun Station will again trigger the supernova to send the probe data from this cannon launch back in time. ]

[ **YARROW** : In total, each cycle created by the Ash Twin Project will last precisely 22 minutes. We can end this cycle at will. ]

“I don't think anyones made any machine like this before. Who knew it was even possible to bend the shape of time like this.” Sage says

[ **YARROW** : These words are difficult to write: The Sun Station did not work. ]

“I don't believe it, they were so close” Piper says shaking her head “After all this effort and time. They deserved to succeed.”

“You two continue around the project, I'll see if I can find some more information in the writings here.” Bay says as he looks among a scattered collection of projection stones on a nearby table.

  


At the opposite end of the platform a wide trench was carved into the floor with a large pillar standing at its foot. The glassy ball resting inside was enough of an indicator that this must be the core release switch, now they'd just need a way to actually reach it.

“Over here,” Sage says “The artificial gravity switch.”

She gives it a flick and the room around them begins to slow down. The floor slips away from under them until they're almost fully weightless. The larger switch becomes easier to move as Piper uses strategic puffs of recycled air to maneuver up the column. The casing unfolds above them noisily revealing a skinny beam connecting the two halves of the Solar arrays together. The blue energy flows inwards to the warp core still humming gently at the centre of the planet.

“Right.” the two of them move upwards “Now all we need to do is take out the core to reprogram it.” Piper says grasping it lightly by the edges of the glass compartments. She twists it in place until it clicks and slips it out of the slot. The various computers wind down and the lights fade as the project falls into silent darkness.

“This feels wrong doesn't it. Like we're trespassing.” Piper says as a shiver runs down her spine.

“I know what you mean.” Sage replies, shaking her head slightly “One small change and this entire project becomes useless, but we're here to help I'm sure they would have understood.”

She shifts around to the over side of the warp core and they both inspect it all over. It was practically identical to the Advanced core aboard their Vessel only differing in the patterns and flourishes that were used to decorate it. Piper twists the ends in opposing directions, unscrewing the the centre and sliding the halves out to expose the delicate components hidden within. The core clicks again, locking itself at just over double the length with its guts spread in the space between. Sage carefully detangles the wires, unfolding the mechanisms to be able to better work with them.

“Thankfully it seems warp technology hasn't changed much in however many years since this core was created.” she comments, unclipping her precision tool belt and placing it to float just above them. “Can you change the targeting system to add our vessel while I modify the power distribution?”

Piper nods as she takes out one of the tools from the belt and starts the delicate process of tweaking the miniscule components on the cores targeting circuit. Thank goodness Nomai had small dexterous hands that were perfect for this kind of precision work.

  


* * *

  


“Be careful. If those get twisted the interference could desync the timing circuits.” Sage uses a long hook to move away the wires.

“I've almost got it, I just need to make sure the main control unit slots onto its board correctly.” Piper replies, teasing in the final changes to the core “There, I'll hold it in place as you close it.”

Sage pulls away her tool and grabs both ends of the Advanced warp core, clicking the locks and slowly pushing the two halves together, the lack of gravity helping to keep everything in place as the pieces fold back up. They both let out their held breath in a sigh of relief. Sage returns the core to its spot at the centre of the shell and the lights around the project begin to slowly turn back on, slightly dimmer than before but still enough to see.

“Right, now we head back to let Mint and Tarra know we've finished our part.” Piper says maneuvering back down to the floor. “I hope her modifications work like we think they will, I'm getting faint just thinking about finishing this search.”

“There's only one way to find out.” Sage replies, closing the Cores shell and turning back on the artificial gravity “Have you finished here too Bay?”

“Ready when you are.” He nods to Piper

They return back around the curved platform and step onto the glowing white warp pad. The light of the scalding sun is almost blinding as it bombards the surface. The team follows the roadway back around the planet while trying to protect their eyes.


	18. The search

“Piper, Sage, welcome back.” Mint greets them as they enter the bridge “I take it that the Advanced core modifications went well?”

“I'm fairly certain it has,” Piper replies, still blinking rapidly from the harsh light “We should be able to harness the Twins solar towers for our Vessel. How did Tarra get on with her modifications?”

“We've tested them and they work perfectly.” Tarra speaks from beside her “How do your modifications work? Will I need to include anything in the scanning process.”

“I've made it so that just enough power will be kept at the project to allow for its systems to run.” Sage explains “That way we can send a signal to tell the project to open the black hole link and send us the excess power when we need it”

“Right, I will quickly add that into the program. Then we should be ready.” Tarra says as she taps her staff to the Vessel’s main computer and starts typing away.

“We're so close now,” Mint says aloud to no one in particular “I'm tempted to invite everyone back into the bridge, or will I be getting ahead of myself?”

“I can't say for certain if it'll work but it's exciting nonetheless,” Citra chimes in “I can't stop thinking about what we might find.”

“Wonder no more. We're ready!” Tarra announces giving a flourish as she sends off the finalised code.

Mint gives a wide grin “Rosmar, would you send out the pulse.”

“Right away! Sending pulse now!” Rosmar hits the button on her screen and the Vessel whirs to life. The crew gather around behind her, watching intently at her screen as the ship logs the Sonars progress.

A tense silence fills the Vessel, If The Eye of The Universe was as far away as it was suspected to be then it would be at least several minutes before it would be marked on the screen. Everyone holds their breath holding down their emotions while they wait agonisingly for the results to return. Piper slips a look to Mint, firmly grasping his hand in anxious anticipation while he squeezes back in eager excitement.

“It's working! something's showing up!” Thymus intently points over Rosmar’s shoulder to a bright and sharp shape forming on her screen.

“That looks far too small to be The Eye.” Moracia replies doubtfully from over the other shoulder “Plus there's four instances of it being picked up, shouldn't there be only one?”

“Give it some more time. It's still working.” Rosmar counters.

Gradually more shapes form on the screen, each further out than the last.

“Look at this,” Citra points to the screen “The objects in this cluster are all identical, and the ones over here are a different shape but still identical to their cluster.”

“Could that be an error from doing a high power pulse?” Piper asks it's inventors

”I am certain it's not.” Tarra says, thinking hard ”You said the data included a quantum signal didn't you Citra? We must be seeing these rocks in all of their quantum states at the same time.”

“But those formations must be quite big themselves. Surely they can't be quantum.” Mint protests

“They must be, we must be scanning for quantum material,” Tarra says “But if we are then what does that mean for The Eye?”

  


The screen flashes again. Five much larger and almost spherical shapes form, appearing to light up slightly paler in comparison to the other smaller fragments.

“A lunar quantum rock, to match the lunar quantum map.” Citra says “It was mapped to something the size of a moon because it was a moon.”

“If that is a moon then it looks like it orbits every planet in the system,” Mint says as he counts through each of the shapes “If a moon can be quantum does that mean a planet can be?”

“Perhaps The Eye _is_ a quantum planet?” Tarra chimes in “Either way, if we're seeing a moon for each planet here that means the pulse has extended to the edge of the System so we should see whatever The Eye is soon.”

“If The Eye is a quantum planet how would we be able to find it?” Moracia says “Wouldn't it exist in multiple orbits around the star that we'd have no way to collapse into one?”

A few more tense minutes pass as they wait for the final results to display. A murmur of dismay spreads through the crowd and emotions turn again as the uncertainty of the search returns. The screen flashes again, several massive unidentifiable shapes light up at various places in the screen. A pale flicker of at least twenty quantum planets each with their own wandering moon at an extreme distance from their Vessel.

“Well,” Mint lets out a sigh “We know it works now, we know The Eye of The Universe exists and is somewhere in the system even if we don't have an exact location.”

The bridge falls silent again as the crew look over the results.

“I'm sure we could find it.” Rosmar instigates “If we send out a few pulses we can estimate the orbits and find the places where they crossover. That way we can find the point with the highest probability to find The Eye.”

“That'll work, it'll just take time to wait for multiple pulses and predict all of the orbits.” Tarra adds

“Take all the time you need. We will find The Eye.” Mint says with returning determination. “We should all be careful and take a break too, with revelations like these I don't know what we'll find when we do find it but we must ensure that we will all be ready.”


	19. Fourth Movement (Affettuoso)

The bridge was silent and the lights were dim. The Vessel sleepily drifted next to the system's white hole, where it was decided the visual warping would provide better camouflage from prying eyes while everyone rested. Mint watched across the whole system from his ship's grand window, deep in concentration and with so much new information running through his mind.

Two cities of Nomai, one frozen and one boiling, hidden inside two planets that waited patiently for so many years for someone to find them while searching for something they had only managed to catch the smallest glimpse of.

Was he really going to be the one who finished that search?

Well, not 'him' of course, he had a whole crew as well as a partner for life co-captain that he needed to thank for pushing them to this final movement, where they've followed the trail left before them to its end and will now tread onwards in honour of its predecessors.

Something about that seemed deeply poetic in a way.

  


“You're still wide awake I see.”

“Oh, Murraya, you caught me off guard.” Mint says addressing the voice that had snuck up beside him “You know me, I can never sleep when I'm inspired.”

“I figured as much,” She follows his unturned gaze out the window “You've been thinking about the coming Festival again haven’t you?”

Mint gives a small laugh “It seems like the universe itself gave a suggestion when I asked for ideas.”

“I could practically hear the symphony composing itself in your head when you and Piper started sharing your initial investigation.”

“That seems so long ago now with everything else we've learned since, but yes Escall's story must be retold and that will be our main piece.”

Murraya nods in agreement and lets a mutual silence return for a moment.

  


“Amazing isn't it? The story, the view.” Murraya gestures out the window to the soft glow of the distant sun “I'm sure there's much to inspire us in this odd system.”

“Whenever I see a system from afar like this I'm always reminded of Moracia's old 'Dance of the Planets' piece.”

“That was the one where each movement was themed after the planets of the Halcyon

Star system, was it not?”

“Indeed. I was very young at the time but we spent days on end drifting beside the various bodies of the system while everyone wrote different motifs to encapsulate them.” He shifts his gaze across the planets as they bathe in the sunlight “I can't say we will do it at the same scale but I do see us returning to the Cities in order to soak in the atmosphere. Or to potentially capture some ambience to play on top of.”

“As long as you don't expect anyone to go Black hole diving with a microphone for the Hanging City's theme.” Murraya says with a smirk

“Fortunately the lowest range of Bay's instrument simulate that distinct tone quite well.”

  


The bright blue halo of Wooden Haven winks as it emerges from behind the sun “Did you hear from Caps' report that the residents in the system also have musical capabilities?”

“I wasn't surprised to be honest. Music is a very natural occurrence,” he answers “I'm sure every form of life sings to some capacity.”

“Do you think they know about the secrets of their system?”

“They must, there’s ruins of Escall’s clan on every planet and they're almost on the verge of being sufficiently spacefaring.” Mint squints at the green ball, trying to see if he can make out the Village crater on its surface “...Being residents of this system they're already so close to The Eye too, that almost seems tempting to make contact and invite them to join us when we venture out to it. But we'd be endangering them as much as ourselves.”

The conversation winds back down to the quietness of the Vessel.

  


“Make sure you do get some real rest at some point.” Murraya instructs as she steps away from the viewport “We're going to need you as much for composing as we do for leading.”

“I'll retire to my quarters soon,” He waves her away. “I'm sure Piper will be along in a moment to tell me the same thing.”

  


* * *

  


The main crew funnels back into the bridge, taking their respective places at the various stations and wishing a good rest to the previous crew as they leave.

The two leaders join shortly after, crossing the room and taking their place at the grand window.

“Mint, Piper, we've finished our calculations.” Tarra announces her presence to them “We should be able to warp to the most probable location of The Eye”

“Are you sure?” Cori asks “as a reminder we missed our warp into this system.”

“I've taken that into account,” Tarra replies “Our warp core’s exit must have been affected in the same way as the time interval. We're making a much smaller warp now so we should arrive with more accuracy, but to be safe I've calculated a location where we should be close enough to The Eye that we'll be able to see it but we won't be able to crash into it.”

“If you're certain.” Mint says, she gives a nod in response “Help Piper set the warp’s coordinates then let us know when we're ready.”


	20. The Eye of The Universe

The Vessel emerged out into the darkness of space. The golden sun was the only thing recognisable among the thousands of other sparkling dots and yet no bigger than a fingerprint on the black sky. An eerie aura permeates throughout the ship as a silent unnatural hum seems to emanate from the nothingness. A small crowd of the more curious Nomai gather at the viewport, compelled to stare out across the speckled inky void.

"Is anything really this far out?" Thymus asks, narrowing his eyes to try and make out the dust molecules of the planets passing over the sun.

“We don't even have any idea what it looks like,” Caps replies while almost pressing the side of their face to the glass “The planet might not even be here yet”

“Hopefully we should see it pass.” Tarra steps to the glass too “It has a slow orbit but this point was along its most likely path.”

“And how long will that wait be.” Moracia protests “We can't just stay here.”

“I understand what you mean,” Mint says “This oddity is definitely something that needs to be seen but its elusivity could mean we end up waiting indefinitely.”

“Do you think we should perhaps contact someone else,” Piper asks “Maybe another Clan specialised in quantum phenomenon?”

“We absolutely should.” He replies “But without any sort of proof we'd have no convincing evidence.”

“That's understandable darling, but what about-”

“It's below us.” Rosmar interrupts, leaping from her screen and joining those at the window “The Eye is already right below us.”

Everyone looks down. A distinct blueish-purple hue stains the space below them in a wide cloudy disc. The black pupil at its centre watches back.

“Cori,” Piper addresses the awestruck crew member beside her “See if you can get us closer.”

He immediately hops back to his station and plots a small path, steering closer while rotating downwards to make the Vessel face The Eye directly. The maelstrom of fog seems to get clearer, flashes of light arch across the turbulent mass illuminating faint hints of strange elongated structures but somehow keeping the planet below within perfect darkness.

"It's exactly like its symbol." Piper notes as she traces its phantom spines on the glass with her finger "In the Hanging city we saw a symbol of The Eye like a flash of light with a circle at the centre. The image of the original signal they heard from it."

"Is it producing that signal now?" Mint asks.

"It's producing a Signal but I'm not sure how Escall’s vessel interpreted it to recreate what they saw." Rosmar says adjusting some of many settings on her screen "It's very dense and layered, yet it's coming through with an extreme intensity."

"Can you play it as our Vessel hears it?"

She fiddles with the controls a little more before sending the transmission to the bridge's speakers. A chilling medley of sounds ring out loud and clear. A strong whistling of wind punctuated by a strange kind of marred sour thunder and underneath a subtle wailing.

“That's unlike anything I've ever heard.” Moracia glares at the waveform on the screen “What is that even supposed to be?”

“It must be the storm raging across the opposite hemisphere.” Piper suggests

“That sounds nothing like a normal storm.”

“It doesn't look like a normal storm either.”

Moracia tuts in agreement “There's something else too, can you filter out some of that white noise Rosmar?”

An unnatural semblance of a voice surfaces from the discordant noise, a collection of surreal shifting pitches that create a mystifying harmony.

"Is- is it communicating with us?" Caps asks aloud

"It can't, it shouldn't be able to." Moracia answers

"It seems like it's trying to tell us something." Piper answers too

"It’s singing." Mint finishes "It’s singing to us. It knows who we are and wants us to see it."

The sound almost seems to come through even clearer as if reacting to the thought.

  


“Should we make an expedition down?” Piper asks after a few moments of silence.

Mint remains transfixed on the amorphous planet still stroking his moustache, almost pulling it out from his deep level of concentration. She shifts her gaze to Moracia prompting for an answer from her.

“I don't know. We hardly know anything about The Eye and what we do know we've barely gleaned from whatever little it seems Escall's clan knew.” She shrugs “We could try to learn more but it seems as much unknown to us as it was to them, and that unknown doesn't seem like anything we should be messing with.”

“I can try to take a look,” Thymus fumbles for his scope “I won't be able to see much from here but we wouldn't have to send anyone down.” He doesn't wait for a reply and focuses in on the featureless planet. The dim surface is marbled with colourful deep blue tones swirling randomly on and around jagged rocky structures. He spirals outwards loosely, pausing every so often to inspect a particularly strange formation or an oddly spherical crater. A glow seems to emit around the edges of the planet, pulsing in an unpredictable pattern that continued underneath.

“There's definitely something happening on its hidden side.” Thymus says shifting the lenses in a futile attempt to zoom even further “I can't see any relation to the visible side, but maybe if we could get closer...”

“I won't risk moving us any further.” Cori says firmly “If that giant storm is anything like a normal electrical storm an arc to our Vessel could cause significant damage and if it's not a normal electrical storm it could do anything worse.”

“Right,” He shifts the scope to look into the cloud “Those structures inside could be equivalent to a lightning rod with how the storm is running along them.”

A flash of something makes Thymus pull the scope away from his face and blink a few times before raising it back to his eye.

“That's strange I thought I saw something else in the storm.” He quickly zeros in on another flash just as it fades out and sees the after image lurking in the dense clouds. “That can't be right, this planet is barren right?” He shifts the lenses and twists the scope in his hands a few times.

“Let me take a look, maybe you've been staring through that thing too much.” Caps takes it from him and inspects the storm "See, it's just a forest. No wait, Those are the sequoias that litter Wooden Haven and those are the towering woods of Tepid Thicket"

“What? No?” Thymus snatches his scope back "I see the granite towers of Magmatic Mason, and the ridges of Great Gnamma."

"That makes no sense. Those planets aren't in the same galaxy." Piper gestures for the scope and takes a look for herself, recognising the familiar flashes of mountains and rivers "How is that even possible?"

  


"The Eye was here waiting for us to find it and now it's trying to communicate with us." Tarra improvs "It has a voice, singing as we do and now it’s showing us the landmarks we've seen, it wants us to know it's friendly."

"It can't. It's a planet," Moracia argues "It's not sentient."

"It might not be intentionally communicating but it's definitely trying to do something," Sage joins in "Perhaps the sheer quantum intensity gives it the potential to be any other planet we've previously encountered."

"Perhaps even the potential to collapse into those we haven't encountered as well." Tarra adds "This relic is older than the universe itself, perhaps it doesn't even abide by our known laws of physics."

"What does that mean for us?" A confused Caps asks

"I have no idea!" Tarra answers excitedly

"Mint?" Piper places a hand on his shoulder, lifting him slightly out of his trance "You've been focusing hard, what do you think?"

"Right now we will contact the other clans and tell them about what we've uncovered," He says turning to address everyone "In fact we will tell the whole colony about the footprints Escall left behind that we've had the honour of retracing"

"What shall we say to them?" Rosmar asks, poised ready for Mint to start dictating the message.

"We won't say anything." he replies "If The Eye wants to sing, so be it. We shall sing along too. We will gather out instruments and we will duet with The Universe so that the whole colony can hear its song."

A mix of emotions spread across the crew

"We shall broadcast as far and wide as we can to tell as many Nomai about about this rediscovery"

"I want us to boost our signal range as far as we can. Rosmar, will you tune us into the emergency auxiliary line and get ready to broadcast when I give the word."

"Mint!" Moracia scolds "You'll get chastised for performing on that line."

"Exactly. It is the best way to get as much attention as possible."


	21. The Hearthian Village

"Chert? What are you staring at out there? It's the middle of the day." Hornfels attempts to deter the young astronaut away from the observatory's scope.

"I was calibrating my telescope and I thought I saw something on the edge of the system." They reply.

“Do you mean the White hole?”

“No, no, something bigger.” Chert fiddles with the dials trying to force an image to focus “There! Look! can you see it?”

“The Interloper?” Hornfels peers through the glass “Hm, can't say I see much of anything really.”

“No it's definitely there,” They take the eyepiece back “It's just hard to see because there’s so much light.”

“Chert you can't just stare out hoping to find something in deep space.” Gossan says, announcing their presence to the meeting.

“Seems your pick of astronauts are just as loony as mine.” Slate remarks while dumping a pile of papers onto the already messy table as they both sit down.

The two exchange an eye roll as they pass the eyepiece again.

“Well, when Feldspar came back they did claim to see someone else's ship as they passed Brittle Hollow...” A flash of something dances across the lens, a faint glint across the edge of something in parallel lines.

“Yeah and if their stories get any more ludicrous I'm going to have us consider grounding them.” Gossan shuffles some of the various items into piles

“Let them be, they're just trying to inspire the hatchlings.” Slate argues while organising their blueprints

“And maybe Riebeck,” Gossan adds in “You'd have to be blind not to see the look on their face when Feldspar said the other ship looked like it was landed by the Nomai crash.”

“If someone was there then I'm not sure what they could find that we didn't.” Hornfels shrugs “The mystery of those ruins is almost indecipherable from whatever little is left.”

“Why would someone come here to see some old bones and crumbling buildings anyway?” Slate replies doubtfully

  


"Hornfels!" A raspy voice calls up, interrupting the starting of the meeting.

"Rutile, good to see you!" they poke the railing to greet the Mayor before continuing down the spiral slope "How can I help you today?"

“You’re likely busy so I'll get straight to the point." They shift uncomfortably on the creaky floorboards.

“You have to stop letting your pilots crash land in our village. Feldspar's ship was this close to plowing right through Porphy's Hut" they pinch their large fingers together for emphasis.

"I'm sorry about that, but you know how Feldspar gets-"

"That's exactly why I'm telling you no more crash landings. Slate's engineering horror show is bad enough without having to worry about your reckless pilot on top," Rutile presses a palm to their forehead, already feeling the next Outer Wilds Ventures based migraine "I can only hope your newest member has the decency to forewarn us if they're going to crash."

"Don't worry about it." Hornfels reassures uselessly "I'll see if we can figure something out, and don't worry about Chert either, they've shown real potential in the 'knowledge and science' part of the program instead of the 'explosions and rockets' part"

"Bah, I don't care if you get a pilot that only cares to fly to the Youngbark crater." Rutiles bats away their rebuttal "No more crash landings."

"Okay, understood." Hornfels nods.

"Good." Rutile confirms as they begin to leave the museum "One of these days your little space program is going to be the death of me." they mumble as they head out the door

  


“What was that about?” Slate barely looks up from their slouch as the curator returns “Sounds like Rutile came to moan about something again.”

“Yeah, it's the last straw for crashes in the village.” Hornfels recaps

“See. I told you your new 'special fuel mix' would be too much,” Gossan jabs at the scribbled sheet dictating the concoction “Plus you shouldn't have let Feldspar test it so liberally.”

“It’s not my fault Feldspar's heavy handed with their controls.” Slate argues back

“At least thanks to them we know we're capable of reaching all of our system’s planets.” Hornfels smothers the argument before it starts.

“That's true, but we'll probably want to make these fuel tanks bigger.” Slate shuffles around some blueprints “Y'know for when you want to start making proper expeditions out there.”

“Nice save,” Gossan snorts “Definitely no more crashes if you're gonna load our pilots up to their ears with Rocket fuel.”

“We'll just have to find somewhere else to crash,” They shrug “Probably just outside the crater will be fine.”

“You'll burn the whole rest of the planet like that.” another voice tuts

“Ah Esker, did you manage to catch that stowaway from Feldspar’s ship?”

“The little bastard managed to slip away into one of the geyser streams.” They plonk down a large glass jar in the middle of the table “Bet the thing would have started eating away at all our fish too if Spinel hadn't got lucky enough to hook it.”

Gossan and Slate lean in to get a better look at the thrashing contents of the jar. Inside the muddy water an alien fish violently tossed and turned, it sported many long teeth out of its mouth and a soft yet bright light out of the top of its head.

“You're sure this thing came from the Bramble?” Slate taps the jar, prompting the specimen to slam into the wall “I mean it's a fish right? How could it survive out of water let alone in space.”

Esker shrugs.

“Whatever it is I'm sure it'll help us figure out more about Dark Bamble in the future.” Hornfels takes the jar from the table and carries it to their shelves “I'll have to figure out what to do with it later, we've still got our crashing problem to solve.”

“What about the Attlerock?” Esker suggests “It's far away from the village, there's no oxygen which'll starve fires and it don't have an atmosphere so the already broken ship won't break up any more.”

“And the lower gravity will make repairs easier.” Slate adds

“We could establish a permanent outpost there too, which would be quite useful to keep an eye on future expeditions.” Hornfels strokes their chin “We'd better start planning to send supplies across A.S.A.P, It’s definitely going to take us a few hours to figure out a shipping schedule for supplies let alone building resources.”

"Will you need any of my help with that?" Chert asks, always eager to apply themselves.

"You know I can't say no to more brains on a project."

Gossan snorts "You want us to help Slate find one first?"

"Oi!"

  


* * *

  


Esker shoves a pile of stationary to the side and sets down a dimly glowing lantern in the cleared space, “You really must have been underestimating when you said ‘a few hours’ Hornfels”

“Hah sorry about that. It’s our first off-planet base, I want to make sure we get it right the first time.” they say, pausing their writing to let out a half yawn.

“Uh oh, the old farts are getting tired.” Slate mocks

“I thought you two were the same age?” Chert asks as they get passed their own lamp

“Oh nice, so you're on their side now too." Slate jabs a thumb at their smirking antagonist "I’m not that old you know."

"Could've fooled me." Gossan shrugs, receiving a sour glare.

"Hornfels, please send me to the moon so I don't have to deal with these idiots." Esker tuts.

"No way, that means I'd have to stay behind with them." They reply half joking.

The remarks pause for a moment of eye rolling and glaring. In the lull a subtle crackling emanates from somewhere behind them.

  


“You didn't tell me your radio was broken.” Gossan says as their ear twitches at the low static it was producing. They pick it up and hold it to their ear, giving it a shake to hear the components inside “Sounds like it's got a busted power supply; and maybe speakers.”

“That's weird, it was working yesterday when I was practicing radio protocols with Chert.”

Slate leans over to give their own inspection “Seems fine to me, there's just a lot of interference.”

Gossan fiddles with the dials and switches attempting to clear up the signal “You might be right, it's definitely struggling to get separate out the right frequency.” They flip it over to remove the back cover before scowling down at it “Probably doesn’t help that it isn’t even turned on?”

The rest of the team close in around the radio.

Gossan flicks the switch and the radio bursts with life, the static vanishes almost entirely receding behind an aberrant melody.

“What on Hearth!” almost the entire group exclaims.

“Maybe it is busted, I ain't never heard anyone's radio do that.” Esker says prodding at the various buttons, none of which seemed to do anything to change the radio's voice.

  


They listened in silence. The song seemed normal, as in it sounded as much like music as anything the Hearthian village would play yet something about it seemed…

There wasn't quite a word to describe it.

There was a slow and steady beat laying underneath that seemed to anchor the song, yet no drum Gneiss or anyone else made sounded anything like what the radio played. The instruments seemed to be played far too perfectly, like someone had been practicing them since before they even hatched.

The meticulously crafted melody filled with pedantically placed flourishes and accents was mesmerising. It drew them in, entrancing the group on the radio as if it was demanding for them to listen, like a bizarre encrypted message specifically for them. They listened in captivated silence to the tune that twisted and unfurled, evolved and escalated over the prolonged timeless moment it played out for.

The track began to slow, the pieces faded out one by one in an array of final motifs. Hornfels breaks the silence, snapping everyone back to reality as they cuss at their radio. At some point during the song, unbeknownst to the other listeners, they had fetched a tape recorder and had been recording as much as they could.

“No! No! No!” they shake the radio, trying to summon back the alien music “Come back, I need to record more, I need more.”

Hornfels sighs as the rest of the group watch them. The only sound from the radio now was a Voice, but it sung a range that no gravelly hearthian voice could replicate, and seemed too hyperreal and unnatural like it didn't belong to any living being. It's haunting shifting tones had been part of the entire performance, weaved into the background as whatever else played on top. Now it was solo, as if to enunciate it from the rest of the cacophony of sounds played before it.

The voice swells a final time before it cuts off completely and the radio returns to its usual crispy silence.

  


“You don't think this has anything to do with those ships, maybe Hornfels?” Chert asks, turning back towards the observatories telescope.

“Well...” They try to think of an answer “If it was someone, why would they try to contact us like this?”

“I say we try to get someone out there to see if they can find anything.” Slate says, sifting through their messy pile of blueprints.

“For once I agree,” Gossan says “If they wanted us to hear them so bad they must want to see us - We'll have to get a ship ready right now, one of the bigger ones so that Rutile can go too.”

“Rutile doesn’t even dare tread near our ships; they're not going to sit in one.”

“Rutile is our mayor, whoever these people are they're going to want to speak to them.” Gossan argues

“This is ridiculous,” Esker butts in “They'll just think it's another elaborate prank.”

“Esker you heard the same thing we did, I even recorded it.” Hornfels winds the magnetic tape to a random part and plays a short snippet of the song.

Esker shakes their head, too stubborn to believe what they're hearing. “It just don't make any kind of sense at all.” They furrow their brow as if to scald the tape.

  


Hornfels clutches the recording and thinks hard about what it could mean. So many possibilities but there was no way to figure out which, if any, were true.

“I'm going to have to look into this further.” They cut everyone off by grabbing the radio and setting it down with the tape on the 'important' shelf. “Right now we still have a Lunar Outpost to plan for.”

“You can't just drop this like it never happened.” Gossan crosses over the room and picks up the radio again “This could be-”

“Anything!” Hornfels finishes “We have no idea where to start, I'll analyse it when I have a clear idea of what to do with it since for now I don’t even know what to think.” They take the radio back, pausing for a moment before setting it down again. “Chert, keep an eye on the sky for us.” They turn to the astronaut who had already taken a position back at the telescope “Use this one, or your own, or leave the crater if you have to. You just need to tell us if you see anything at all happening out there.”

Chert nods and glues themself back to the eye piece.

“And what? We’re just supposed to go right back to this stupid moon plan?” Slate sneers at the sketches and resource lists scattering the table.

“I can do rocket science. I can’t do whatever that was.” Hornfels shushes them while gesturing vaguely at the radio.

The give and aggravated grunt before reluctantly turning half an eye back to the lunar outpost plans.


	22. Message Log

[ **HEDERA** : Who is broadcasting over the emergency line? This is improper use of this frequency. Identify yourself immediately! ]

  


[ **ALO** : Is this your attempt at humour? You are on the emergency line Mint. We won't be able to know if someone is having an actual emergency. ]

  


[ **SALS** : Mint, why are you performing on this line? Is there something wrong? ]

  


[ **LARIX** : This frequency is only intended for recipient by the closest Vessel. Who is using it to broadcast to more recipients than it was designed? ]

  


[ **TULI** : While the music is appreciated, the unconventional delivery over is not. If you’re looking for an audience I’d recommend not using the emergency line. ]

  


[ **AGASTA** : Mint! This line is for emergencies only, cease immediately! ]

  


[ **LONI** : Who is using this frequency to play music? This frequency is for emergencies only. Stop now! you're cluttering this frequency! ]

  


[ **RHEU** : Why is there music on the emergency line? Is this some kind of encrypted message? ]

  


[ **FLAX** : Whoever is abusing this line ID yourself now. You've got everyone's eyes on you and your foolish behaviour. ]

[ **MINT** : Friends and strangers alike, I must apologise for my blatant misuse of the emergency aural line but I needed to get everyone's attention to spread this message across the entire colony as fast as possible. _DO NOT TUNE OUT!_ Let me and my Clan explain ourselves. ]

[ **BETULA** : Your explanation better be immaculate, else you're at risk of having your Vessel taken away. ]

[ **ALO** : Didn't they just recently receive their Vessel from Moracia? I'm surprised she would let them do such a thing. ]

  


[ **KALE** : Don't embarrass yourself Mint. Admit fault and we can move on without disciplinary measures. ]

[ **NYMPHA** : Without _harsh_ disciplinary measures. ]

  


[ **MINT** : I am reaching out to all of you with an extraordinary finding at the edge of an unusual star system. It is not our discovery, but instead the last one Escall left behind. I'm sure many of you are already familiar with their Vessel and it's story. ]

[ **AGASTA** : You found Escall? You've piqued my interest, what did you find? It must be crucial if we all need to know! ]

[ **CALLU** : Don't tell me you believe in that ridiculous superstition too. ]

[ **ALDER** : Don't encourage them. ]

[ **VALLA** : I’ll have the both of you know that there is sufficient evidence _against_ ****your pessimistic views. ]

  


[ **NEPETA** : If you're claiming that old legend is true, which I highly doubt, it still does not excuse your misuse of the emergency line. ]

  


[ **MINT** : I know there are many of you who will not believe me, their story stems from an myth after all, there is lots to tell but to keep it concise we now know why Escall disappeared. ]

[ **PIPER** : As you can already assume Escall and their descendants are unfortunately long gone but their legacy remains and we have retraced their path in this system and finished their final discovery: _The Eye of The Universe_. ]

[ **MINT** : From the first moment they encountered its elusive signal they tried to chase it to the source, they learned as much as they could and dedicated their lives to finding The Eye of The Universe. ]

[ **TARRA** : The Eye is older than our universe and beyond comprehension. It is a point where Universal fundamental uncertainty escalates to extreme magnitudes. Allowing for the very laws of the universe to be abused so they could create a machine capable of deforming time to locate The Eye of The Universe. ]

[ **ALO** : These claims are absurd. Nothing can be older than the Universe, its a physical impossibility. ]

[ **RHEU** : But is it really? Just because we’ve never found anything doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there. ]

[ **ALO** : I am not preparing to have this inane conversation with you (or anyone else for that matter) over comms. ]

  


[ **LONI** : That's completely ridiculous. These statements are almost insane. ]

[ **SALS** : But does it not make sense? Measurable uncertainty must originate somewhere, right? ]

[ **NYMPHA** : Even if it makes sense, it can not possibly be logical. ]

  


[ **MINT** : We are now at the quantum planet that is home to The Eye of The Universe. You have all heard it singing to you over our instrumental and I encourage you all to see it for yourself; But before I can tell you its location I must include this warning. ]

[ **TULI** : A Quantum planet? As in a planet that exhibits quantum behaviour? That cannot be possible. ]

[ **VALLA** : Theoretically it could, but I’ve only ever managed to extrapolate it for meer pebbles. If uncertainty surges like they say then it could almost definitely be possible. ]

[ **MINT** : The Eye's uncertainty seems to increase the margin of error of our warp cores. _**DO NOT PERFORM ANY LONG DISTANCE WARPS TO ITS LOCATION**_. The amount of energy required for a warp seems to be a main factor in upsetting the accuracy of the core, with higher amounts causing more dramatic inaccuracies. I recommend you make multiple smaller jumps to reduce the risk of exiting in an undesirable location. This phenomenon caused Escall to lose their Vessel and, upon our own entry to the system, caused us to be in uncomfortably close proximity to a volcanic moon. ]

  


[ **MINT** : Friends, Strangers, _Everyone_. Spread this exact message as far as you can. Find us at The Eye of The Universe on the furthest arm of the Stellate Galaxy. Piper will broadcast our exact location to you all over more conventional channels - remember! For your safety: _DO NOT WARP HERE DIRECTLY_. ]

[ **AGASTA** : Mint, I'm eager to see what you've found. Expect me there soon! ]

  


[ **HEDERA** : Admittedly my curiosity is getting the better of me, but I will be furious if is is a fabrication. ]

[ **LARIX** : Even if it is a hoax, visiting a mostly uncharted Galaxy would prove beneficial to other more useful projects. ]

  


[ **BETULA** : If what you say is true then The Eye will be unarguable proof, I will come too. ]

  


[ **FLAX** : You tell a convincing tall tale. I am preparing my Vessel as I send this message. ]

  


[ **VALLA** : I am increasingly curious about your findings and more. When I arrive I hope you can go completely in depth. ]

  


[ **SALS** : I look forward to seeing your clan and your discovery, I'll make my departure to you shortly! ]


	23. Coda

One by one the mass of spirals fade from the screen returning it to a blank slate as the other Clans tune out of the frequency.

“My heart is pounding, I can't believe we actually did that,” Piper says, switching over the communication line and sending message after message of The Eye's coordinates “How many of them do you think will come? How many believed us?”

“Enough I think,” Mint replies “When they come and see The Eye for themselves our argument will only become stronger and then I'm sure eventually the entire colony will want to see The Eye.”

“And what are we to do now?” Moracia asks the both of them.

The two Co-captains pass a blank look to each other and the rest of their crew.

“I have not the faintest idea.” Mint steps back to the window to look at the mysterious planet below “I'm not sure if there is much else we can do aside from keeping a visual on The Eye to make sure nothing happens before anyone else can arrive.”

"Who knew we would find the literal biggest mystery of the known universe on the other end of a faint distress call." Piper slips her hand into Mints.

"We might even have missed it if those old beacons had died down. They might even have been completely forgotten." His voice shifts into a sombre tone.

“There must be so much more left behind but we found them. Perhaps that was all we needed to do?” Piper adds

“I’m sure it will become clear in the future, others will be able to uncover all that we didn’t, but for now; I agree. We did our duty. What happens next in the hands of the Everyone now.”

The two leaders relax, leaning on each other and letting the thought hang in the air.

They watch The Eye in silent reflection.


End file.
